All posts by Darren

FFG InFlight 

imperial assault, news

So with no FEG@TA last night, I was at the cinema watching Suicide Squad (an enjoyable movie, with the worst looking Joker ever), I’m continuing my coverage of GenCon from a far from my social media monitoring!

Yesterday FFG had their InFlight I think it’s called presentation at GenCon. Where they go through all their new stuff. What’s the point of this really considering they have been making daily announcements for over a week now? Did they have anything new to say?

Well I’m not going to go through everything they covered. I’ve already discussed the bits that interested me from when they made the announcement earlier.

But there was some new stuff they had held back for this talk. The biggy for most people but of no interest to me Runewars the miniatures game. FFG do wargames now to, or they will be when this hits.

The new but I was interested in was the stuff for Imperial Assault.

In the next expansion we are off to Tatooine and the start of Return of the Jedi with Jabba’s Realm.


The sculpts look amazing, especially the rancor.

Naturally to go along side this big box expansion we have the Ally and Villians packs to replace the tokens in the expansion! 

So here is the list of Allies and Villians:

  • Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight Ally Pack
  • Alliance Rangers Ally Pack
  • Captain Terro Villain Pack
  • Jabba the Hutt Villain Pack

Wait what Luke again? We got him in the base game! Yeah but this time he had a lightsaber and is a Jedi! 

But wait there’s more! This photo with unreadable text on it is all I can find about the new announced app for Imperial Assault.


Yes I hate apps. Well specifically games that can’t be played without the app. But companion apps that aren’t needed, but make the experience better if used, I’m down with. 

Anyway I’m expecting this app for Impetial Assault to be like the Descent app. Which having not used, I believe allows Descent to be played co-op by all players. 

Catch you in the next update.

Warring Colonies

news

So we haven't seen the stand alone expansion/game Dead of Winter: The Long Night hit the stores yet (end of August I think, but who knows how long it will take to cross the waters to our shores?)

Then what do we see at GenCon?

Another expansion for Dead of Winter called Warring Colonies. This looks a smaller box, so not stand alone.

No other info at the moment, except the Instagram photo above. I've checked the website of PlaidHat and nothing there at time writing.

So with the flick em up cross over it could be a cold cold winter! What? Ok that was pretty bad.

 

Burnt

Uncategorized

Last night I met Tom a fellow Ashes player (although he’s doing much better than I in getting games and deck building).

I’m not going to give too much away about cards in our decks. After all these are most likely going to be our tournament decks for the upcoming tournament at The Hobbit Hole on the 23rd (details can be found by selecting the menu option at the top of the page).

Our first match up was my hastily thrown together Aradel deck vs Tom’s Jessa deck.


We played a couple of games of this match up but I didn’t have anything that could counter Tom’s plan. Which he executed really well. It locked up half my battlefield at times. I needed a better way to handle this situation but what? It’s back to the cards looking for a solution I can include.

I made no changes between the two games because you need to play a deck at least a couple of times to even have a remote idea what needs changing.

Our next match up was Aradel vs Dimona.

I have to admit I was tempted to build a deck around Dimona. But I liked the idea of comboing Aradels ability with the natural dice ability. 


The third game went the same way as the first two with me crashing and burning, despite a tweak to the deck that I had made.

Before our what was to be final game of the evening I adjusted my deck once more taking into account advice Tom had given me. I adjusted my first five and played them to plan. The surprising thing was I played my first five to the plan described by Tom, but he didn’t! Plus he had first player advantage. Curious was Tom taking pity on me?

With that tweak and great start I was able to get my only win of the evening.

I have a better idea about how to play my deck, and how to play in general.

Although I’m tied up a lot next week with having to be ruthless as I take a trip down memory lane. Tom and I are hopefully getting one more play in before the tournament on the 23rd. Which I’m looking forward to. Could this be the start of a local meta? 

Most Unexpected Cross Over

news

Apparently this is real, it’s a thing. I’ve tried googling to find out more but nothing is coming up (at the moment). I’m hoping more photos get released showing more of the game if it’s real. This is mind blowing! Could this be the biggest surprise of GenCon this year?

Here is the link

 UPDATE: found another photo on Reddit

Apparently this is a real thing – the box is a prototype box. Wow, gobsmacked I’d never in a million years have guessed this one. 

She stole my precious 

Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

With the arrival of my Kickstarter exclusive deluxe copy of The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction (it came while I was away visiting Nath), naturally I wanted to get it to the table.

So a quick post yesterday on the Fenland Gamers Facebook page enquiring about availability of others during the day to meet up and play was made. I do feel like I’ve jumped back to eight year old Darren when I make this kind of post. The eight year old me standing in front of a big red door, knocking several times to get some-ones attention. Who is then confronted by an irritated and stressed mother who I have just dragged away from some important task to answer the door. “Can Johnny come out to play please?” I ask hopefully. As eight year old me awaits an answer so does old man Darren sit there checking Facebook for any replies, constantly hitting refresh. 

Debbie replied she was free after 5pm when worked finished. Or in eight year Darren’s world of the seventies when she had done all the chores her mum had given her. 

We arranged to meet up at the grown up play ground Spoons just after five. 

Later in the day I also got messaged by Jonathan that he too might be allowed out to play. But if he wasn’t there by five thirty to start without him. 

So to cater for Jonathan not having completed whatever chores he had been allocated I packed two two player only games. New arrival and über bargain from The Works Sun Tzu and 7 Wonders Duel. 

I had chosen a nice table to sit at that sadly was inappropriate because although the gush of cool air as the main door opened was refreshingly nice, it also blew away cards on the table. So Debbie and I relocated to another less breezy location within the establishment.

Just as I was setting up The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction Jonathan arrived.

This was a learning game, and although I’d read the rules a couple of times, watched a couple of YouTube videos, I still needed to use the rules to setup and explain the game. But that is an accepted part of this sort of gaming session. None of us have played the game, we are all learning, and at times none of us have had time to read the rules either. 

The rules are simple enough and fairly quick to teach. In fact the most complicated part I’d say is the set up! And that isn’t overly complicated.

Naturally The Manhattan Project: Chain Reaction is a card game that captures the essence of the worker placement big brother The Manhattan Project. 

Like its big brother it’s a race to build bombs and reach a points total, in this case ten points to trigger the end game. Person with highest score wins.

This is a game of combos, and using your cards either as a worker resource or as a production unit of some kind. With the odd card that gives you extra card draw or ability to force an opponent to discard, or even steal a card from an opponent.

Turns are usually pretty quick. So little analyse paralysis, if any. Some player interaction. 

I love the fact it used art from its big brother. So it’s instantly familiar if you’ve played the big brother, even when it comes down to decoding the cards. But even then this wasn’t an issue because Debbie hadn’t played the big brother before and quickly picked things up.

In my deluxe version I have wooden tokens to use instead of the cards to represent yellow cake and uriduim. These are really nice and a nice addition. 

Chain Reaction for me really does capture the essence of its big brother, it’s light, quick to play and learn. It really is a nice game, I’d definitely recommend getting a copy.

We followed up trying to blow up the world with a game of Harbour.

I like Harbour. It can be frustrating because it is very reliant on what the starting buildings are in the middle. In this game I was locked out of one building because I didn’t have an anchor, and could only use half of another’s ability for the same reason. 

Jonathan this time found the ever changing market a source of frustration. Which it can be, but still I do like that mechanic. 

The lead moved around the players as we bought buildings, screwed each other over manipulating the market, but despite that Debbie edged in front and skilfully completed the four buildings required to trigger the end game. 

Points totalled Jonathan and I drew for last place or if you want to be positive about it second place. But romping home with a massive lead was Debbie. So Debbie robbed me of my title of Harbour Master. 


I will get a rematch to try and claim my rightful title back. 

Oh the above card came out near the end of the game. We thought it was an insanely powerful card. I hadn’t seen it before. But wow!

Anyway with my precious stolen it was time to go home our mums were calling our eight year old selfs back in for tea. 

Flood of News

news

Just some pre-Gen Con, and I’m assuming press day news that has caught my eye.

New Angeles is the latest addition to the Android universe. 

This plays four to six players in apparently 2-4 hours. 

It’s taking a different approach in this game where you are playing as the corps in the Android Universe. 

I’m not sure about getting this game, mainly due to the minimum number of players, and then if I do manage to find that many to play, the duration is long.

It will be interesting to see how this fits in with the story arc currently going on in the Android Universe. For instance the game Mainframe takes place in the 23 seconds that the largest bank in the Android universe goes dark, which the Flashpoint Cycle in Netrunner is exploring.

FFG announcement here
Asmodee announced today the unexpected first expansion for 7 Wonders Duel, the Pantheon expansion. The Gods are coming to Duel!


I wasn’t expecting this. Nath and I both love this game. So you can be sure I will be buying this when it comes out.

Not sure it needed an expansion, but more variety is always welcome. 

Asmodee announcement here

New Game of Thrones game! Shocker not happy with announcing one new Game of Thrones based game already (based on Cosmic Encounter for 3-5 players). FFG now present us with The Hand of the King.


A card game using lovely cartoon art work, it almost makes you think there was a cartoon of the books.

I can see myself getting this to play with Nath. I hope it is a good two player experience.

Announcement here 

Carcassonne Star Wars gets an expansion! 



I believe this adds another player, more tiles (for that player I assume) and weapons!

If you can read German you can get more info here

That’s it for now. I’m sure there will be more stuff breaking over the next day or so.

Victory at last

father son gaming, game night, Uncategorized

Last night Nath and I got to play a single game of 7 Wonders Duel after he got home from work, ate and showered. 


I’d started gathering science cards in the first age, and Nath managed to get a couple of military cards, while I’d grabbed one to counter that threat.

It was the second age that our individual plans started to take shape. 

Nath was definitely going for the military win, while grabbing blue victory point cards. I was grabbing science cards, and more or less pinning my hopes on that. 

I got two of the same science symbols so had my choice of the progress tokens. I took the one that added take another go to all my wonders. My next turn much to Nath’s amazement and I think disgust I completed all my wonders! Nath hadn’t done one yet and was now limited to just completing three.

I was pretty happy with my position. I had five science symbols, and I was building up a nice cash reserve. Nath had been chipping away on the military front, and despite a little push back on that front by me, was now sitting within four points of winning that way.

The third and final age, the science card I needed was out, plus a duplicate that could give me the win (allowing me to grab the progress token that acts as a science symbol). But there was also the military cards that Nath needed to get the win.

Nath managed to stop me getting the science cards I needed. My win condition was blocked. I started grabbing blue victory point cards in a desperate attempt to catch Nath up on that front.

Then Nath built the only card he needed, the one that gave him the pick of the progress tokens not used in this game. He chose the one that gave military cards one extra attack. Then he got to take the last military card a three pointer, which was now worth four to get the win.

We had two cards left before we went to points. Which I think Nath would have won also. 

A great first victory for Nath.

BTN July 2016

by the numbers, gaming stats

Wow another month has flown by. 

Twenty two games, sixty plays. That’s incredible. Two OP events (Star Realms and Netrunner) helped push these stats through the roof. 

Some old and new favourites got to the table. Although I’d liked to have got Guilds of London back to the table, and played more The Voyages of Marco Polo. 

With Biblios Dice and Valley of the Kings seeing daylight, two more games make it off the pile of shame. Plus they didn’t disappoint.

July saw six brand new games getting played. Five of them in my collection. 

In all a very successful month I think. Despite none of pile of shame five not making it to the table.

Let’s look at the pretty graph showing the trend.

Wow! hey? The number of games played kind of continued the plateau I’d reached. Good grief I didn’t think I’d ever beat the high of March/May for number of plays. But holy heck this month smashed it. I’ll never ever improve on this months figure. 

My game of the month…

So this month I think my choice for my game of the month has to be between Qwixx and 7 Wonders Duel. 

Qwixx as I pointed out yesterday is a great gateway game, easy and quick to teach. And it also fills that gap of quick filler game wonderfully. Plus I think when it comes to throwing a bag of games together to take for a Costa gaming session, Qwixx will be an instant addition along with Love Letter Batman.

However I think 7 Wonders Duel has to be my game of the month. It’s such a great two player game. It has lots of replay ability, no two games are the same. It’s joined Star Realms and Netrunner in my top three two player games. Look how it hooked Nath yesterday. I don’t see how this can’t be game of the month.

Worst game of the month…

This was a close one too. My candidates for this infamous award are Dalek Dice and Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. 

I think the one that definitely takes this unwanted title has to be the unfulfilling Dalek Dice. An unnecessary over complicated push your luck dice game, that should have kept it simple. Just doesn’t measure up to Zombie Dice.

Father and Son Two Player Gaming Sunday

father son gaming, Uncategorized


With a snappy post title like the above I bet you guessed I’m down visiting Nath. Which means Father/Son gaming (well when he’s not working).

Our scarce time together means we have to have to be “selective” in what we play. No epic marathon games here. We are talking a maximum of an hour to play. So I’d bought Imperial Settlers, Roll for the Galaxy, Run Fight or Die, 7 Wonders Duel, Epic, Magic duel decks, Qwixx and Star Wars Timelines, with me.

While Nath was working Kate popped round with a spare house key for me to use. In return I introduced her to Pokemon Go (we even visited a couple of local poke-stops), followed by teaching her Qwixx.

Qwixx is proving a great popular gateway game! It really has been enjoyed by everyone I’ve shown it to. Kate was no exception. I should point out Kate is not a gamer, Nath taught her Star Realms once. But that is about it as her experience of “modern” hobby gaming goes.

After playing our introductory game of Qwixx, Kate asked if she could borrow it over night. That’s a “I like this” if ever I saw/heard one. And yes I let Kate borrow Qwixx.

After Nath got back from work, and we scoffed some food, Nath’s copy of Star Realms hit the table. We were playing basically everything that had been released thrown into one deck – excluding the majority of the year one promos (but the Hero Realms Kickstarter is closing that gap).

Our first game was a fairly easy victory for Nath. Nothing memorable about except he kicked my butt.

Game two saw my come back. One of my gambits allowed me to get rid of my vipers on turn one, so I was just drawing econ cards.

I had a nice bases strategy going. I had two copies of one of the Colony Wars Trade Federation bases that each gave me two gold to spend each turn. However get a third base out with them and each gave me four authority and allowed me to draw a card. Tie this in with an Embassy Yacht you can be drawing four cards on a turn, plus getting eleven authority, and six gold to spend! That’s insane!!! And I got that combo firing more than once during our game.

In the end I was in the eighties for my authority when I destroyed Nath to go even on wins.

A tie breaker was needed.

It all started so well. Nath had the black market gambit card which gave him exclusive buys at a reduced cost. Boy did that work for him. It kept filling up with one cost cards, which meant they were free! I just thought “great, keeping spamming your deck with cheap cards, that will water his deck down nicely.”

It wasn’t long before I had Nath on the ropes and down to seven authority. My bases were doing a good job protecting me, I was keeping his bases out of play, my authority was in the sixties. It was looking good. If only I had been able to deliver that killing blow of seven authority, but the cards had decided against that.

In fact the cards had then decided to be kind to Nath, his authority crept up, while mine plummeted down. In the end Nath was able to destroy my galactic empire. But it had been an epic struggle. My bases and outposts had posed a formidable wall that had held off the onslaught for a long time. But once they crumbled it was over.

That victory gave Nath the over all win also, beating me 2-1.

After that draining third match we had a short break. A break really was needed.

Time to teach 7 Wonders Duel. We know what I think of this game, but would Nath enjoy it?

We used the suggested starting wonders for a first game. It made sense, Nath wouldn’t know what is good or bad in a draft.

Our first game actually went to points. The first time I’ve had a game get to this. It actually finished pretty close really, with me winning 52 points against Nath’s 46 points.

“Can we play again?” Nath asked. Wow a sure sign he liked it I think.

Some games just turn on one moment in time during the game. Our second game had such a moment. In the second age I was three points of being defeated by Nath with a war victory. Two cards left, the last one being a war card that I couldn’t stop Nath getting. If he got it, game over.

I had the wonder that allowed me to install a card from the discard pile for free when completed. Early in the round Nath had discarded my glass production card and I’d been planning to use this wonder to fish that back. But now I had to complete it and hope I could find a solution to save my skin in the discard pile. As luck would have it there was. A two shield thingy war card was in the pile. I installed that, moved the counter back two spaces. That was all I needed to do, I couldn’t die now when Nath took the remaining card.

From there Nath wasn’t able to recover in the final age. A points victory for me was assured.

“Another game?” I’m beginning to think Nath likes the game as much as I do.

Our third game saw me win with a scientific victory. Nath hadn’t spotted I had built up a nice collection in the first age. At the end of the second age I was one science symbol away from victory. I had no other plan, if it went to points I’d lose, and Nath was pushing a military win.

I dealt out the cards for the third age, the final science card I needed was in the first row dealt, so would be reached last. More than enough war cards were coming out to Nath’s delight.

The last two cards were placed. One of the the science cards I needed was one of the two cards. But who was going first? It was my choice being the weaker military side. Oh I think I’ll go first then. Science wins!

Phew that could so easily have gone Nath’s way. Luck if the draw again!

Nath wanted to play again, boy is he living this game. Sadly it was late now and being an old man I was really tired. So we called it a night there.

But some great memorable games played this evening.

Out Next Week WS1Aug16

news

I've not done one of these for a few weeks, mainly because there has been very little out that has been of interest or grabbed my attention. As I said in a previous post it's the lull before the GenCon Storm that is next week.

With FFG announcing the app crippled second edition of Mansions of Madness at the end of last week, I was surprised to see that it's hitting the shelves of your FLGS next week. I'm glad I'm not intending to buy this albatross because it's going to set you back £93. So for a hundred quid you can get the game, a kebab and a can of pop!

FFG with the second item to catch my eye this week, and one I'm more likely to buy. Well ok I will buy, because I can use them to play with Nath. Oh what is it? They are releasing the two 2015 World Championship decks that the 2015 World Champion used. I'm going to treat these like Magic duel decks.

Finally one of the hottest games of the year will hit the shelves, having only just reached its Kickstarter backers, and that's Scythe from Stonemaier Games. The Collectors edition of this is going for around £100 at the moment with its pimped out components. So £60 isn't looking too bad. Compare it with that app crippled monstrosity Mansions of Madness, and it looks a bargain. Although I want Cry Havoc more, this is a close second.

Well that's the stuff that has caught my eye from the Asmodee Borg Collective controlled Esdevium. Don't forget 12% of these prices is due to Brexit. What's caught your eye for next week?