All posts by Darren

A Sinful Post

Uncategorized

Despite hating CMoN I have to admit the minis in The Others are really really cool.

Since my copy of The Others arrived I’ve been putting a photo of one of the sins up on Instagram each day.

One comment I got was “Paint them!”

Which I should do. In fact I should finish off the storm troopers first. 

I have a crap load of minis to paint if you take into account the ones in Imperial Assault, Zombicide, Cry Havoc, Run Fight or Die, and also now The Others. 

What’s stopped me? Laziness mainly, mixed in with a bit of lack of confidence.

Maybe I should see if any of the Fenland Gamers are into painting minis, and willing to run a session or two to help boost confidence etc. It would certainly make me do something.

Hot or Not

by the numbers

At the start of the week I think it was on one of the Facebook board game groups I keep an eye on, some-one posted asking how many of the BGG Top 100 did we own, and how many had we played?

I posted my response which after this mornings little exercise in Excel proved to be inaccurate! Oops maths was never my strong suit, plus I’m old. Well that’s the excuse I’m going with, and sticking to.

As I just hinted I pulled the list of Top 100 games as rated on BGG, along with the current list of Hot Games as of this morning on the site (you can find that list on the home page of BGG), downloaded my current list of games owned from BGG, and then used the magic of Excel to process the data!

So out of the current list of Hot Games, (and don’t ask me how a game gets on this list, I have no idea. There must be some sort of clever algorithm working in the background looking at data on the BGG site.) I own 8 of the 50 games that make up this list, or as a percentage I own 16% of the current Hot Games. But have only played 6 of them, which works out at 12%.

That’s not too bad really, considering that usually the Hot Games are normally just released, or announced games, or existing games that have an expansion coming out.

With the current Top 100 (based on scores BGG members give the game I believe with some voodoo done to those figures) I own 21 of them, or 21% (yes percentages are really easy for the Top 100). But I’ve played 30 or 30% of the Top 100 games.

Which I think isn’t too shabby if you ask me.

Plus there are 2 games (Cry Havoc and Keyflower) on the lists that I don’t actually own yet but will in the next week. With a further 3 I think sitting on the Top 100 that are on my Wishlist.

On the Hot Games list there are 5 games (with only one of them overlapping on the Top 100) that are To Be Played (TBP). Which basically means I want to get them to the table real soon. And there are plans in place for two or three of them already.

For those with nothing better to do here is the excel spreadsheet with my data in it.

I have to admit it has been fun doing this little exercise and I might do it as part of a yearly round up or something. How about that for a threat?

This area is mine

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Yesterday Jeff, Debbie and I got together to play some games!

Kemet was going to be one of those games, but it wasn’t guaranteed that Cry Havoc would make it in time. I knew it was in the postal system making its way to me, and it was due to arrive.

Luckily it arrived an hour before we were due to meet up and play some games. So as I was popping cardboard chits, I had the Watched It Play video on for the rules. 

We started our gaming off by playing Kemet.

I liked Kemet.

I started off with red and blue pyramids, with my red pyramid on level 2. I was going full on aggression with a hint of defence. 

Within two actions I had the red snake god/monster supporting my one of my troops. By the end of the turn I had also got the Delta temple, while Jeff had grabbed a temple, and Debbie had the Sanctuary of All Gods. 

I got the scarab beatle as my other god/monster, grabbed a second temple, and was allowed to keep the two temples unchallenged for about three days! I bought a tile that allowed me to have a troop size of seven instead of five.

Jeff did steal my level 4 red pyramid, that slowed me down a little as I tried unsuccessfully to get it back, and ended up recruiting seven units, and placing the scarab beetle on that space to win it back.

I liked the combat, the choosing a card to play and one to discard mechanism is hard. You don’t want to throw any of the cards away. But you have to make that decision. Then you have to decide if you are going to boost the attack with a divine intervention card or two. Assuming that is you have any you could play. 

I like the aggressive nature of the game. You can’t hide, the clock is ticking from the moment the game starts. 

I like that initial decision of what your starting pyramids will be, it determines the style of playing/tactic you will be using for the rest of the game. 

The pyramids level determining what level of power tile you can get is a great idea. And a nice way to slow down the arms race. Otherwise everyone would just jump in and buy uber powerful cards at the start. 

Having the three coloured power tiles focusing on the three tactical paths is nice. Naturally I was going for aggressive red tiles, and the odd blue defensive tile.

I like that taking a temple is like saying “come on if you think you’re hard enough!” As is taking a pyramid up to the max level of four. Naturally Jeff in our game did in deed think that about my red pyramid!

Yeah I’ll be playing this again.

Right next up, Cry Havoc.

Yes another aggressive area control game!! This one is one of the hottest games at the moment.

I have to admit when Portal Games announced this game nearly a year ago, it didn’t grab me. In fact I thought “nah” not interested. 

But then I saw the Watched It Played video of Rodney playing against his son “Lucky” Luke. “Wow that looks amazing and fun” I thought. The combat mechanism looked interesting and full of interesting decisions, along with being unique.

In our play of the game there were a couple of misplays. We missed how you got terrain cards into your hand. We thought you could only draw from your own draw deck with the draw card action. And we were puzzled how you got those cards into your deck. 

Then it wasn’t entirely clear what happened with scoring of prisoners, victories for the person taking on the role of the trogs in a battle. And I still need to clear that up by looking on the bgg forums.

We were no way playing to the strengths of our factions. But that comes with experience.

This didn’t seem as aggressive as Kemet. There wasn’t as much player vs player battles, but more taking on the local trogs. The player vs player happened more towards the last couple of rounds.

Jeff did run away with the points, and cut out a round. So instead of five rounds we had four. 

The asynchronous factions is nice. But you really need workout what your faction is good at before the game starts, and play to its strengths.

The manual could be clearer on the trogs in battle in a two/three player game. 

Being able to take prisoners is awesome. Then getting victory points for them before the owning faction gets a chance to buy them back. Genius. It’s like hostage taking and holding them for ransom. 

Multi use cards. What else can I say. It’s a mechanic I like. 

I like this, some nice decisions to make, a nice game that invites you to play again just to master the faction you are playing.

A nice “aggressive” afternoon of gaming. Saturdays should be spent like this. 

Men and Women of UNCLE

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

Can you guess what last night was?

Yep it was FEG@WL or the long winded version Friday Evening Gaming At The White Lion! Our weekly gaming meet up at the Fenland Gamers.

Our gaming session now clashes with Steak night at The White Lion. So sadly that lovely big table we played on is now unavailable. But as usual The White Lion has generously allowed us to use their function room.


I think you will agree there is a little room for growth in numbers. 

We are very grateful to The White Lion for allowing us to use the facilities they have for free. It allows us to continue to run the weekly session as free to attend events. Which is part of the clubs DNA. Both Jonathan and I both really believe that you shouldn’t have to pay to play games, “free at the point of play” as Jonathan likes to say (I think that’s his words more or less). It’s an expensive enough hobby as it is buying the games.

There are other reasons as to why we don’t like to charge but you don’t want to waste valuable time hearing a diatribe from me on gaming clubs.

Our hosts provide us with great facilities, great beverages, it has free parking, and now great food if we want it.

Oh yes I had to sample the bannoffee pie they had on the menu. It was really good. The rest of the menu looked very tempting too, Debbie the manager showed us photos of the dishes. The only draw back is I’d just want like the ribs, plus the special plater and the wings. I’d be in a meat coma in no time! 

But word of warning to club members we will be arranging some sort of food thing after a session real soon. 

Right on to the real reason you are here… your bored with life, have nothing better to do and want to read my poorly put together thoughts on games.

We played one game last night and that was a learning game of the recently arrived Covert. A game I had bought second hand at a really good price off one of the Facebook boardgame trading groups.

I should point out, and I don’t think when people read that we played a learning game, it is exactly that. We haven’t even read the rules, or at best managed to skim read them before hand. Yes not ideal, and for some this is a major sin. But we have busy lives, and sometimes it is easier this way!

So after setting up, going through the rules we started playing Covert.

I think the theme comes across really well in this game, from the components, graphic design, and the mechanics. They just combined well to bring out the theme.

You have elements of hidden information where players are keeping their code cards, missions, operation tokens and ‘activity’ cards (can’t remember the exact name). Then you have open information,such as your dice, character, completed missions and code cards.

And this works really well especially the dice. The first phase of a ’round’ starts with everyone rolling their dice, and taking it in turns to allocate them to actions. Knowing the other players dice allows you to potentially block another player on an action. 

You also during this phase get the chance to grab first player advantage but doing so means you will have to forgo at least one action to do so. 

But being first means you get first attempt at code breaking, which is the next phase. And you may really need to be first to make sure you decode your card and get that bit of equipment you badly need. “Oh no”, did they just play an operation token to steal first player spot for code breaking? !!! 

Or it might be you really need to be first taking actions in the third phase so you get that mission card you really wanted.

The operation tokens were cool. And provided one way to mitigate poor dice rolls, or other cool effects like moving agents three spaces. But it costs you a dice in the allocation phase to get one, and they are random.

If I’d drawn the right one in the last round of our game Jonathan may not have won! 

Those ‘activity’ cards. Love them, multiple use. Act as equipment, can be used to fly an agent to the city named. Or finally can be used for its ability. The abilities are the same as the operation tokens as far as I can tell. So another way to mitigate poor dice rolls, and other cool powers. 

Completing missions possibly depending on the mission gives you not only points but a permanent resource that can be used to complete other missions. 

There is a lot to like about this game. It’s not super heavy. But it’s fun. At one point Debbie thought our game was never going to finish. But Jonathan and I both completed the majority of our missions in the last three rounds, we both had rounds where we completed two or three missions in a round.

It was a quick game to pick up, although Debbie didn’t grok it until near the end. We had the majority of the game down easily by end of turn two. Then it was just clarifying the odd point or symbol.

A great fun game, Jonathan was James Bond in the end for the record.

So that was our only game for the evening. 

Great company, great beverages and food, and a great game. What more do you need to end the week, and start the weekend?

Kemet Saga Ends!

tabletop

So the Kemet saga is over already. There is dancing in the streets, fireworks going off, alcoholic beverages flowing freely.

Let me fill you in on the semi-complicated situation behind this saga first. I don’t think I have related this tale to you before.

Recently a friend of mine decided to get into X-Wing in a big way after playing the game at another of friend of his. When I saw how deep he was jumping in, I said if he was interested I’d sell him mine. Well I hadn’t played it for two or three years. All they were doing was acting like really cool models to look at. I had been too lazy to put them up for sale on ebay or one of the Facebook trading pages. So a deal was hatched between us that involved my friend buying two games for me that I wanted in exchange for my X-Wing stuff, which included that really beautiful star map play mat I got.

One of those games was Kemet. So my friend contacted Chaos Cards who he bought it off, who sent me another copy with a return label for sending back the copy with the missing bits.

I was really impressed with this response. While this was going on I was in contact with the publisher who were asking for proof of purchase (which I had to go back to my friend for), and where I bought the game. Then it turns out they didn’t have any miniatures in at the moment. So there would be a delay sending anything out to me. Which they said would be before the end of the month. I’ve now cancelled the support call with the publisher.

I am naturally excited that I can now play the game. So I’m trying to arrange an opportunity to get this to the table ASAP. Especially considering that Cry Havoc is back in stock, so my pre-order can be sent to me now. I particularly wanted to play Kemet before getting Cry Havoc to the table.

These last few weeks of the year are getting pretty crowded with trying to squeeze plays of games in. We are already setting up stuff for January next year, and I can see that we will be setting dates for February soon as well.

Games currently scheduled for hitting the table before year end are: Seafall (we are trying the prolog of this to see if we will like it enough to commit to playing the main game), Scythe, and Mechs vs Minions.

Kemet, Cry Havoc, Covert, and Alien Frontiers are also screaming to get to the table in this time frame.

I’m gobsmacked at how busy things are looking. It almost makes it look like I have a social life! Who knew?

Oi Games Workshop 

rant

Despite the nasty taste CMoN have left, The Others once more shows what they totally get and you don’t.

42 minis in The Others core box if my maths is correct. And I’ve not had to put a single one of the together, cut one off a sprue or use glue. I can play the game straight away!

No excuses Games Workshop this day and age.

The ugly child

Fenland Gamers, game night

Looks can deceiving. There is that old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover”. 

And for Monday nights learning game there were never truer words said.

We were learning to play Castles of Burgundy. This game is not going to win any beauty pageant. But as the tired mantra of ugly people everywhere suggests, what this game lacks in looks it more than makes up for in personality!

Castles of Ron Burgandy – I know that was a poor joke. But it had to be done. Is a very nice game. You are rolling dice, getting tiles, adding them to your tableau, getting some benefit. All fun stuff.

Let’s get straight to the bad points, you may have guessed by the introduction it isn’t a pretty game. But who cares? The game play is great.

The rule book is not great and often the cause of some discussion and misplays.

And that’s all I can say that’s negative about the game! 

We were playing with the basic player boards, well it was our first game. So everyone had the same map. But the bit I like and we didn’t play with them was that there are more player boards each with different layouts/maps on them. 

This kind of makes it asynchronous for the players, each having different agendas on the tiles you need to get to complete your zones on your map. 

It also means lots of replay ability. Which means the game will be fresh for a long time.

Yes you are rolling dice, but the game has mechanics that allow you to manipulate the dice to get the value you need. Whether by spending worker tiles to adjust it up or down by one for each worker spent, or by using a tile ability you have managed to build. 

There are multiple tactics you can employ to score points. Sadly mine ended up not be that brilliant and ended up with me in last place. Luckily Diego didn’t lap me on the scoreboard. Which was Jonathan and mine ultimate aim in the game. 

How effective Diego’s tactic would have been if both Jonathan and I were also doing it, or even if one of us was, I don’t know. It would have reduced his scoring a bit I think.

Oh and there are opportunities to get extra “actions” during a turn too.

Yeah there is a lot to like about Castles of Burgundy. I definitely look forward to Jonathan bringing this ugly baby to the table again.

The saga ends

new arrivals, tabletop

Guess what was waiting for me when I got home?

I had been tipped off earlier in the day when others in a Facebook boardgame chat group for the UK started posting theirs had arrived unnounced.

So here is the contents from that massive box.


As far as I can tell at the moment everything is there, apart from six dice. But they might actually be in one of the unopened sealed boxes.

So having learnt my lesson with Kemet, I now have a long task making sure every box has exactly what is meant to be inside them. 

I am going to keep to my word, this is the last CMoN project I will back it buy. It’s left too much of a bad taste in my mouth to want to have anything else to do with them.

Lost Gods And Pyramids 

ages, Fenland Gamers

Yesterday morning I had to visit the local post office collection point to pay import duty of £12.88 on my Kickstarter copy of AGES. I don’t mind paying the duty. I do mind that £8 of that fee is the criminal “handling fee” paid to the post office. But I had the final production copy of the game I was excited to open it up. More on this later in the post.

So lunchtime yesterday Jonathan and I met up to play Kemet and Last Will.

We were going to start off with Kemet. Sadly as we were setting up it was discovered that there were no pyramids (and later it clicked no creature miniatures). This was the source of a little amusement to Jonathan. It’s fair to say I was not exactly happy with this poor quality control by the publisher. 

But I’ve logged a support call with the publisher. So another test of a publisher has started.

So with the bits of Kemet I did have packed away, we setup and learnt Brewsters Millions. Oops no we didn’t, it was called Last Will, which is really the board game of the movie without the license. 

Although not nearly as bad as say Guilds of London the iconography of the cards does take a little decoding. Having individual player reference sheets would help with this. Sadly none are included with the game. 

I liked that seeing as we were playing a two player game it made adjustments and gave us both an extra counter to block off one of the card/worker/action selection spaces. That blocking took place before selecting of a space you wanted took place. But that selecting of the space you wanted also acted as player order for the later phases. 

I felt the “worker placement” phase limited, and frustrating. You have a max of two “workers” you can place, although it could be just one depending on the previous phase and the card/worker/action space you selected. I would have liked a way to get an extra “worker” to use here. 

I did like the changing card market place, that adjusted the card types populating it depending on round. So no “I’ll get that card next turn”, you won’t because it goes and gets replaced by something new.

You are building a “engine” in front of you on your tableau for spending money. But it’s also possible to get bonus actions. So for example my “engine” was giving me two extra actions each turn. Your starting tableau has a fixed capacity to start with, but it can be expanded using one of the options available in the worker placement phase.

The instructions could be written more clearly. But isn’t that a common complaint about games? We found bits confusing or just not clear.

I enjoyed Last Will. It was fun. I’d definitely play again if it was bought to the table. And that’s despite Jonathan winning!

Our second game was AGES. Now I know Jonathan doesn’t like deck builders! In fact it’s one of his least liked mechanics, sitting just above his least liked of roll and move. 

But still Jonathan played AGES.

I really do like the final production of AGES. The cards look stunning and they are good quality. The box is beautiful, and enough space to store all the cards sleeved. A little thing, but there are two foam blocks to keep the cards in place inside the box. I like that, attention to detail. The rule book is a big improvement over the original one. Overall this is a very good, no that’s wrong it’s a high quality produced game. 

There wasn’t much take that going on in our game. Maybe that’s due to the cards that came out. I think I was the only one playing locations and using their abilities. But that’s just the luck of the draw and trade row!

Jonathan struggled with the text size on the cards at times. But we are old, and eye sight at times can let us down. On a serious note though, although an issue for Jonathan it’s not unique to AGES. Imperial Settlers, War of the Ring to name one or two others that have the same issue. 

The elite phase of the game is one of my favourite mechanics of the game. I ended up buying one elite character just to stop its elite phase ability. It had hurt me that turn costing me points, because I had no starter cards left to get rid of, and had only good cards in my hand.

It was interesting watching Jonathan playing. He was scrapping a lot less than me, and buying more of the 2 gold value cards. So his deck was way more “bloated” than my lean and mean deck. That may in part due to Jonathan having less opportunities to scrap. He was aware of the value of getting rid of the starting cards. 

I have to admit I thought Jonathan was going to win with lots of little points. But in the end my convincing victory would have been a lot closer, if not a loss due to a misplay by Jonathan. If Jonathan had managed to buy the elite character I bought triggering the end game, that would have stopped me buying it, and would have ended the game. Plus those points I lost because of that elite phase would have come back and haunted me and cost me the win. 

Jonathan liked the Splendor like aspect of collecting the icons and having them out in front of you, and their dual use to trigger abilities and reduce the cost of elite characters.

As I said Jonathan doesn’t like deckbuilders. He’s also not a fan of sci-fi, and fantasy themes. Which just about covers most deckbuilders. So having one that uses a historical theme means at least the theme was more likely to appeal to Jonathan. 

So when Jonathan said he didn’t dislike the game that’s a big deal. Especially when you consider how he feels about the mechanic.

Me? I really like the game. I love the deckbuilder mechanic. I love looking for those combos, and pulling them off. 

It’s easy to screw up a deckbuilder, just look at the World of Tanks deckbuilder. It’s disappointing that folks can easily get hold of that travesty of a deckbuilder, whilst AGES that really deserves a wider audience isn’t as easily available or known about. 

I really do hope a bigger publisher having seen the final version picks this up, and gives it the marketing love it deserves.

Oh and I love the playmat. 

So despite the shock of the missing bits from Kemet, I had a great afternoon playing games with Jonathan.