All posts by Darren

New Toys for WS11Jul16

news, Uncategorized

So despite deciding to make our pockets a little bit lighter by raising prices, Esdevium has actually decided to share with the U.K. a couple of interesting things next week.

First up, and I’m excited about this, is the first data pack in the next cycle Flashpoint for Netrunner, 23 Seconds.


Very quickly out I think considering that the “core” game came out last month, are these additions to the Tanks skirmish game.


So after a few weeks of dumping stuff on the market I have no interest in, we have the above expansions. 

Consider this the quiet before the storm. Origins has just finished, with some releases happening there. But the big flood is still to happen. A lot of publishers have been holding off for GenCon. 

GenCon hits at the start of August, with all the stuff released there hitting your wallets soon after!

Time to start saving!

Formula D League Finale

Fenland Gamers, formula d, game night, Uncategorized

Wednesday saw the final race of our mini Formula D league on the base games track.

Once more our starting positions were decided using the handicapped system previously suggested by Jonsthan. Which is basically reverse finishing order of the previous race. So the winner is at the back, while the loser is in pole position. 

So with Jo a no show for this final race, and dropping valuable points, she had consolidated her place as last overall.

Having two comprehensive wins previously Katie was the clear overall leader. The best I could hope for was to win and for Katie to not finish, and then I could draw with her. All Katie needed to do was cross the finish line and score to cement her victory.

In reality this race would be all about Jonathan and myself fighting it out for the scraps or more accurately second place.


Jonathan stalled at the start once more! Going into the the first three stop corner I was still in the lead. Coming out of it somehow Katie was in front, and I was last!

How does she do this? There is some trickery going on here.

For the rest of the race Katie held onto her lead pretty convincingly. Whilst Jonathan and I battled it out for second place. Which for a lot of the race looked like a battle Jonathan was winning.

Everything came down to the final four corners. As we negotiated them it looked like we might even steal first place from Katie at one point. But that was false hope. 

With some “brave” (read over shooting and taking wear points) driving, I took second away from Jonathan, as Katie pulled away. 

Katie easily scored her third win, making that a clean sweep of victories.

I came in second, while Jonathan limped in third. Jonathan and I had both been driving on the edge and had finished with barely any wear points left.

So the final standings were:

  1. Katie (9 points – 1/1/1)
  2. Me (5 points – 2/3/2)
  3. Jonathan (3 [not the 4 I originally put – thank you Martin for pointing this big mistake out] points DNF/2/3)
  4. Jo (1 point 3/4/DNS)

DNF – Did not finish

DNS – Did not start

A great three race season, using the beginner rules. There will be another second season starting in the Autumn using the Advanced rules, and possibly an extra track (finances permitting). 

Our hope is the advance rules will slow down the winning machine that is Katie!

New Star Realms App Expansion Crisis Heroes Now Available

apps, news, star realms, Uncategorized


You may notice something different about which expansions to play with when challenging other players now.

It is now possible to buy the latest in app expansion based on an already available physical expansion, which is Crisis Heroes.


I’ve not played Star Realms with the Hero cards, so it will be interesting to see how these play. Will they give incredible insane starts like the Gambits/Events can give?

Continuing with the “pay once play anywhere” approach this is a snip at £1.49.

Esdevium hiking prices due to Brexit

news

So what effect has Brexit had on us gamers in the UK?

Well as this Yahoo Finance chart of the pound against the dollar shows the pound took what at best could be described as a dive.

So stuff being bought from the US via the likes of Kickstarter is going to cost more. Which for me means that the Hero Realms Kickstarter is costing me more than it was just over a week ago when it finishes later in the month.

Now you thought the oil companies were quick to put prices up when the cost of a barrel changed. They could learn a thing or two from Esdevium.

Q

Who very quickly seeing the impact Brexit had on the pound decided that they would need to increase the the price of the games they distribute to compensate. This will be the second price hike we have seen this year from Esdevium I believe.

Now my question is will Esdevium reduce the prices by the same amount if the pound recovers to pre-Brexit prices, just as quickly? Or even by more if it some how becomes even stronger?

Have they jumped the gun, and re-acted too early?

Would we be seeing these price rises if we actually had competition on the distribution of games in the UK?

We already feel that in the UK companies price gouge us on goods. Whether the evidence, economic argument supports this is another question. But when we see games costing a lot less in the US, it’s hard not to think we are subsidising that market with our higher prices.

So this new price hike does seem to be like rubbing salt into an already open wound, despite there being a legitimate financial argument for it to happen. As I have already asked, the only way for this not to be perceived as taking advantage of a situation to increase prices is that when the point recovers we see an similar drop in the price of games too.

 

Noname

Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

Yesterday afternoon saw Jonathan, Jeff and myself meet up for some more Sunday afternoon gaming goodness.

Our gaming started off with one of our current hot games to play The Voyages of Marco Polo.

Once again I trailed on the scoreboard for most of the game. But having completed my two trade routes I gained a massive 23 points to catapult me to the front, which after all the totalling up I didn’t lose. Yep I won by four points (Jeff being the nearest to me). Jonathan was way way off in the distance.

Next up was World of Tanks: Rush.


This was a first play for us. I’d heard that it was Star Realms like. The game was being sold off cheap (a fiver) at a national chain of stationery/book shop.

First off they should remove the word rush from its name. This game is anything but.

It is a deck builder and yes it’s meant to be a pvp one. But I think it fails at this.

Too many design decisions were made putting theme over game play.

Yes the game is cheap, but it wouldn’t get played if you had the likes of Star Realms in your collection. The game lacks the excitement, the in your face moments, even crazy combos. As a pvp deck builder it’s a snooze.

Jonathan took the following photos. And there isn’t enough photos of me on here. Plus it’s criminal really not to share my ruggedly dwarvish looks with the world.

Chatteris Drive By

game night, netrunner

Yesterday saw the second Android Netrunner event being held at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole. Once again we would be competing over the spoils from the Spring 2016 OP kit.

The decks I'd be playing for the tournament would be my usual NEH with a couple of tweaks on the ice front, plus my janky Criminal deck.

My first match up was against Chris from the store/Warlords. You remember Chris he's the only person I have ever had a turn two win with. I'm just saying that because it makes me feel better that he beat me two nothing today.

Our first match up was my criminal deck against his Jinteki. I swapped from Andromeda to Silouette. With two Gang Signs out, scoring an agenda was going to punish Chris. And this bit of jank worked really well once in place. When Chris scored his second agenda I think it was, he only had two cards in HQ, both agendas! Which caught me up fast. Early on in the match up Chris quite rightly iced up HQ and Archives. Especially after I'd used Archives and Sneakdoor Beta to circumvent his ice on HQ. In the end Chris scored a third agenda to get the win.

My NEH is a tag/kill deck, with little tricks firing off the tags. Chris knew this and played accordingly, avoiding my tags. Which if I'd played my Breaking News better (as I did in my next match up) might have given me a win. Instead I just scored it as quick as possible to keep me in the points race, that this time Chris won.

My second match up was against a new player both to the store and the game. I was facing off against his NEH kill deck first with my Criminal deck. My opponent failed to ice up HQ! So I was picking off agendas, and was happily sitting on five points to one. My jank was working, I was avoiding being tagged. In all rights I should have kept the faith. Instead I did a reclass run on R&D to try and hopefully nab the winning. Instead I took tags, failed to get an agenda, and got murdered!

Our next game was Noise against my NEH. The runner scored a two point agenda Private Security Force. I scored a Chronos Project early in reply taking out about two cards from his heap. However I did land a tag briefly allowing me to play Exchange of Information. Yep I liked swapping our agendas over. Guess what the runner decide to clear the tag then. I had two Scorched Earth in hand. I just needed the credits and a tag to kill the runner. Wait if I played Breaking News properly I would have the tags I needed, and the clicks. I had enough credits to play the two scorched earths, and advance the agenda once, but was short a credit for the plan to work.

I installed Breaking News behind a couple of bits of ice ( that fortunately had been rezzed earlier), I advanced it once, and took a credit. I had the money I needed, I just needed the runner to ignore that server and think it was a trap. The runner did indeed ignore my server on his turn. My turn, murder was ago. Advance and score Breaking News for my first click. Two tags delivered. Click two play one Scorched Earth, click three play second Scorched Earth. Smouldering runner corpse on the floor.

My third and final match up was against the winner of the last OP event. Boy was our first game a long game. My jank was working to the max. I was cash rich, I got Femme Fatale out for free using Test Run and Scavenge. I was exposing cards. The old Gang Sign, Leela Patel combo was making the runner reluctant to score agendas. Leela had returned some ice back to HQ to help me get into servers. We were both sitting on four points each. Drive By, Infiltration and Satelite Uplink had helped me avoid some traps, and trash the odd asset.

But the game was drawing on! I was down to three cards in my stack. There was an installed card that had been advanced and was behind three unrezed ice. The corp had more than enough credits to rez them, I didn't have enough to get through. I used my last same old thing to pull back an Infiltration. Bugger it was an agenda. Game to the corp.

A quick time check, we had less than six minutes to get our second game in!

A tactical error and the runners lucky draw cost me the game. I had agendas in hand, so I put both my ice in front of HQ leaving R&D open! Should have put one on each. The runner naturally ran R&D, scored a two point agenda. I quickly scored out a one point agenda. I hit the runner twice with News Team traps on remote servers. Both were cleared and getting the runner nine credits in the bargain! Bugger. That was time and I'd lost. I had done well to be able to compensate for the initial tactile error, sadly my opponent had an answer in hand. A great intense, second game. Wow the pressure of time.

So in the end I ended up fourth in the tournament. I had a blast with my criminal deck. I got such a kick when the jank paid off. It was a fun deck to play. I've got it out of my system and can now return back to my true runner home, Anarchs. It was cool when I got the NEH murder in also. I need to master this deck and how I should be playing it. At the moment I'm making silly tactical decisions that are costing me games.

Such a great day playing Netrunner. Great, friendly competitors. Just great fun.

FEG@TA 1Jun16 – Queen of Montego Bay

FEG@TA, Fenland Gamers, game night

I arrived a tad early to The Angel because I needed to stock up on supplies for the following days Netrunner OP event at my FLGS from Poundland.

Which meant I was able to enjoy a cool Aspall cider before the serious business of enjoying myself playing games.

Debbie arrived first, Jo wasn't coming for some flimsy excuse like having to work, or spend time with her partner. Priorities people!

Anyhow Debbie and I played a game of 7 Wonders Duel.

Neither of us had played this before. So after I ran through the rules, we made a start building our cities.

I have to say this is a great two player game. I love that there was multiple ways to win, from the straight points victory after playing the three ages. Or the two instant victories from either sacking your opponents city via the military track, or getting six different science symbols to get a scientific victory.

Being our first game we went with the starting wonders for each player suggested in the rule book. But normally these would be drafted in a similar way to one of the drafting suggestions from Imperial Settlers.

But I like, even appreciate that the game designers have considered this. I've seen it in one or two games, for instance Imperial Settlers suggests which two starting factions to play, Seasons suggests the starting nine cards to use instead of drafting, Imperial Assault on the skirmish side suggests the starting squads to play with.

I like that the cards are on full display, layed out in different patterns, with some cards hidden and some visible. It makes for some interesting decisions when choosing which card to take on your turn.

Whilst playing the game you do have to pay attention to what your opponent is doing. It effects your decisions. Do you take that military/science card to block your opponent?

The game even plays fairly quickly in about thirty minutes. Which is nice, because it can act as a filler game!

I haven't played 7 Wonders as two players. It didn't have a good reputation as a good way to play the game. This specific two player game based on it, guarantees that I won't ever try to play 7 Wonders as a two player game.

In our game I did a good job negating the military route to glory, whilst managing to grab the scientific instant win. Debbie enjoyed playing the game too. So I can see this being an easy one to get back to the table whilst waiting for others to turn up.

Debbie and I managed to squeeze in a quick game of zombie dice before Jonathan turned up. After taking an early lead, Debbie managed to lose by a single point.

With Jonathan present we decided to play Imhotep. While explaining the rules to her, a colleague of Jonathan's turned up to join us for the evening.

It was after hearing the rules Debbie said the game reminded her of Montego Bay, and she always wins at that. As you can imagine there was a fair bit of banter aimed at Debbie during the game and her Montego Bay claim. We even named Debbie, Queenie or Queen of Montego Bay.

In the end Jonathan's colleague won the game, with me second, the Queen of Montego Bay third and Jonathan last. Much banter and ribbing followed!

During the game Jamie and his son turned up. So while they waited for us to finish up, they played zombie dice.

We played a six player game of Coup. A game apparently Debbie does not like. However I got eliminated early. But after much bluffing, some challenges and the odd coup. Jamie's son came out victorious.

Our final game of the evening was also a six player game of Deep Sea Adventure. Six is the max number this game supports, and it did it fairly well. Some games when they give an upper and lower limit, if played at the extremes don't play well. And that the sweat spot for the game is the middle of the two limits. This isn't one of them games, it plays well at the max number.

In the end Jamie's son and Debbie ended up sharing the honours between them.

After packing away, three of us managed to find our way to a local kebab shop for a post gaming supper!

A great evening game once again.

 

BTN June 2016

by the numbers, gaming stats, Uncategorized

It’s the start of another month, which means it is time to look at my gaming stats for the previous month. 

I thought I’d have better stats this month because of attendance at the UK Games Expo. However I didn’t get to play as much there as I’d hope for. The drawbacks of attending a gaming expo by yourself, and not as a group of some description.

I’ve played some really great games this month, I’d be hard pressed to say that I disliked any I played. With some of the games like Fluxx, Love Letter, I’m trying to ration my plays so that I don’t burn out on them, and keep enjoying them.

My Game of the Month

Once again this has been a really hard decision to make. The contenders making this such a hard choice this month are; The Voyages of Marco Polo, Guilds of London, The Great Heartland Hauling Co. and Imhotep. 

These are all great games, and different from each other. All of them I’d ask to play again. How to decide? 

This is tough, I know as soon as I choose one I’ll regret not choosing the others! 

I’m going to copout and choose all four as my game(s) of the month. There is nothing between them for me to decide between them. I’ve got a great time playing all four of them.

The Pile of Shame Five

At the end of March I set a target of five games to try and get to the table during the next quarter. This is my poor attempt at reducing my pile of shame.

So how did I do? I got the following two games from the list to the table.

  • Ashes
  • Dead of Winter

Whilst I also got Neuroshima Hex! and Roll for the Galaxy to the table from the also rans.

So not a bad effort.

But it’s time to set a new five for the next quarter. So here are the ones I’m going to attempt to get to the table:

  • Imperial Assault
  • Marvel Legendary
  • Alien Frontiers
  • A Game of Thrones
  • Suburbia

Let’s see how I do getting these ones to the table.

Some OP News

news

Finally after much nagging and a Twitter conversation I managed to get to the bottom of how my FLGS can get their hands on organised play kits for Epic and Star Realms from the distributor Esdevium. So hopefully we will be seeing some organised play for them real soon.

The observant will notice a new menu option that takes you to the details about the Ashes OP that I'm organising that is being held at my FLGS. The page has the OP details and a link to the official Plaid Hat event page.

On other news bgg have an Origins clip showing an early look at the amazing looking Tokaido app that is coming out Eisen time iirc. I'm definitely going to get that when it comes out.

 

Drive By

chatteris warlords, game night, netrunner, Uncategorized

At last nights Warlords weekly meet up I got a chance to test drive my first attempt at a Criminal deck. 

I’m an Anarch at heart, I love playing Noise (although the leaked/spoiled Anarch id null from the next data cycle may tempt me away) especially with Faust/David/Street Magic/Wylde Side/Pancakes – which has most people online raging against them (this might be gutted with the first update to the most wanted list due to drop any day now).

So playing a faction I don’t usually play is a big thing.

However I was tempted to come up with this deck after the Run Last Click guys mentioned the Drive By card in the live broadcast they did at the UK Games Expo.

In my hunting online to find out just what the good ice breakers are for Criminal, I stumbled across a card combo that would install Femme Fatale for free! It was out of faction but had to be used a nine cost ice breaker is way way too expensive.

The main thing I wanted to play with in this deck was the Drive By, Gang Sign and Rebirth.

My starting id for this deck is Andromeda giving me an initial massive nine card draw. If that doesn’t give me rebirth, it should allow me to fish for it using some of the card draw or planned assault. 

Once I get rebirth I can then swap to a Criminal id more suitable for the matchup I’m facing.

From what I can tell Criminal is all about the central servers particularly HQ. 

This deck is running a lot of events for me , giving economy, exposing cards, making the hit on HQ more painful for the Corp, and finding cards.

Running one copy of my breakers may seem recless but with the events I can get to them quickly if need be.

Window I added because how many times after losing has the card you really needed been on the bottom of the stack? 


In the game last night I mulliganed, in the second hand I drew I got two sure gambles. A cash rich start. Ben iced up HQ quickly. So a Sneakdoor Beta on an unprotected Archives scored me an agenda. Guess who iced up archives then?

Gang sign scored me an agenda when Ben scored his first agenda. I managed to score a third agenda from HQ. I was sitting on six agenda points while Ben had five. 

My biggest problem was having enough credits to drive my ice breakers in the lay stages of the game. Which slowed down my assault on HQ. 

Ben scored the final agenda he needed to get the win.

I liked the way this deck played. The combo worked to get Femme out for free. Drive By did its job a couple of times. Gang Sign got me an agenda. So the little ‘tricks’ worked. 

We followed up our Netrunner game with Firefly Fluxx which Ben won. 

My final game of the evening was a four player game of Epic. The decks were dealt randomly (in the interests of time), and we played it that you could only attack player to your left, with only the two players doing battle able to play events to influence it, however everyone else could play events when the current player tried to end their turn.

I was the first to be knocked out. However I’m pleased with that, considering the random element to the decks, the cards I had drawn were not bad. I could have been dealt worse cards. In the end Ben emerged triumphant again. A clean sweep for him.

Great evening gaming. But now I have to decide if I play this new Criminal deck at Saturday’s comp at my FLGS or stick to my tried and tested, but more importantly familiar Noise.

Here is my deck…

Drive By Swap
Andromeda (Humanity’s Shadow)
Event (28)

3x Drive By (The Underway)

2x Easy Mark (Core Set)

1x Emergency Shutdown (Cyber Exodus)

1x Express Delivery (Honor and Profit)

2x Infiltration (Core Set)

2x Inside Job (Core Set)

1x Lawyer Up (True Colors)

2x Legwork (Honor and Profit)

1x Lucky Find (Double Time) ••

1x Planned Assault (Honor and Profit)

1x Rebirth (The Liberated Mind) •

2x Satellite Uplink (Trace Amount)

2x Scavenge (Creation and Control) ••••

2x Special Order (Core Set)

2x Sure Gamble (Core Set)

2x Test Run (Cyber Exodus) ••••• •

1x Unscheduled Maintenance (The Spaces Between)
Hardware (6)

1x Desperado (Core Set) ☆

2x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead)

2x Public Terminal (Honor and Profit)

1x Window (Honor and Profit)
Resource (8)

2x Gang Sign (The Underway)

3x Same Old Thing (Creation and Control)

2x Security Testing (Honor and Profit)

1x Street Magic (Kala Ghoda) •
Icebreaker (4)

1x Aurora (Core Set)

1x Femme Fatale (Core Set)

1x Leviathan (Second Thoughts)

1x Crypsis (Core Set)
Program (2)

1x Sneakdoor Beta (Core Set)

1x Au Revoir (The Source)
48 cards (minimum 45)

14/14 (=15-1☆) influence used

Cards up to The Liberated Mind