All posts by Darren

Pandemic Legacy September Again

Fenland Gamers, game night, pandemic, pandemic legacy season 1

Wednesday saw the gang get together after a loooong hiatus (and still no ice cream or present from the holiday Debbbbie) to try and save humanity from being wiped off the face of the earth.

After restarting our first game once we realised we had already caught the paranoid soldier! Yeah that soldier that killed off my character Mustard by revealing he was a traitor! The character who was able to remove the faded. Our main source of doing this, apart from a couple of unfunded events. It was kind of a mercy restart also the game was kicking our butt.

With our restart well under way, things were not looking good. Things were just snow balling, outbreaks of the faded going unchecked, pandemics mounting up, a team decision was made to try and salvage something from this imminent defeat. We were going to concentrate on finding the virologist. At least we would have achieved something, an objective would have been completed. But more important another step to getting a cure for the faded.

It was a close one, but we did complete our manhunt, and the second piece of the cure puzzle found, before the game smashed us in the face.

So September had got the better of us. The game has a great win ratio against our team. Jonathan is going through a love hate relationship with it. Or more accurately battered player syndrome. The game keeps beating him up but he comes back for more.

We still had time to see if we could turn the evening around and get a victory on the sheet.

October saw us having to find patient zero at ground zero as a new objective. Not being able to remove the faded is hurting us. The nearest we can get to any form of control is quarantining cities. But it's not nearly as effective as removing them. Mustard you traitorous git you are truly missed.

Once again we set up to get patient zero as a priority. A priority we achieved. We now had all three parts of the puzzle for a cure. And our earlier misplay was now corrected. The universe was now back in alignment. Sadly the infected cities with the faded weren't. They were running away unchecked. We managed to complete a second objective of destroying two military bases, and cure a disease before time ran out like the faded. We could no longer place anymore faded on the board, so an auto loss.

Defeated again. But we did achieve some things we needed to do. We now have an answer for the faded. We can deal with them now. More about this next time when we can start using it in anger.

 

Running tomorrow

netrunner

Sorry for the lack of updates this week, been busy with work and under the weather hasn't helped. But starting to feel better so will start getting back up to the regular pattern.

Tomorrow starting around 10am is the first Netrunner store tournament at The Hobbit Hole in Chatteris.

Naturally I'm going with my Noise and NEH decks.

I'm hoping it's the above store kit. But I do know the first place prize is even better this time because there is also a copy of Worlds of Android up for grabs. I've donated my spare copy to try and attract players, and build up the community locally.

Looking forward to some great games tomorrow.

 

Frustrated from Chatteris

chatteris warlords, game night, netrunner

Last night I I managed to get a couple of games of Netrunner in. Practice for the coming weekends store comp.

The first game was my Noise against a Weyland deck. The corp took an early lead on the agenda front while I was building up my deck. I was very cash rich at the start, with a David out, Street Magic, Aesops, incubator out in support. Two parasites in hand.

My opponent quickly iced up archives, had a scoring server setup. I did some runs to get targets for the parasites to hit. With a second incubator out I was thinking I'd load up a medium and hit R&D. My parasites were attacking ice protecting archives and the scoring server.

Trashing one of my incubators to take out the ice on archives. Bingo! Five agenda points, back in the game.

Trashed the second incubator taking out the second piece of ice I was attacking with the other parasite. My David steam rolled through the remaining ice to get me the last two points for the win.

In our second game despite some misplays by both of us, I scraped out a win on agenda points.

The rest of the gaming group were playing 7 Wonders with all the expansions. There was some Magic action going on, plus the retro version of Bolt Action, Flint Action.

And while all this gaming goodness was going on Robert was struggling with his inner demons trying to build decks for Netrunner. His frustration almost turning into rage. I've since found out he has quit the game!

 

Empires and Villages At Costa

coffee shop gaming, Fenland Gamers

After spotting the new mayor and his deputy supping daintily a coffee at Costa and saying hi, I had just enough time to pig out at the local Burger King, pick up my free Lego that the Daily Hate is giving away, before ending back at the Costa to meet Debbie and Jonathan for a Costa gaming session.

Before going I had debated internally whether to message Jonathan to bring Bohemian Villages, but ended up not doing so. Luckily Jonathan had bought it with him along with his 18p plus postage copy of Catan the card game.

So our first game of the afternoon was Bohemian Villages. Despite having a nice in play lead on the points front, my undoing was not completing villages to score my town halls and instead taking a negative points hit, whilst thinking I had a majority in churches that I didn't have.

Jonathan just hit it out of the park with the final scoring hitting sixty points. I made it to thirty eight points, with Debbie coming in third with a very close thirty five points. The negative points and not having the majority I thought I had cost me big time.

But still this played really well with three players. I'm still really loving this game.

Our next game was a first play for all of us, and that was Eight Minute Empire Legends. So we were learning a new game as we played it.

I thought this was going to be a lighter game. But wow was I pleasantly surprised. There is a surprisingly amount of deepness to the decisions you have to make. Deciding which card to choose, how much to pay for it, is it worth the cos?t, or do you wait hoping it will drop in cost? Do you take the card for its action to do immediately or for its ability? Or are you taking it to block a scoring opportunity for one of your opponents?

This is a nice little area control game. There are some nice touches to it. The board that you are battling over is variable and changes each game depending on the tiles you select. We played the basic game, which you would for a first time, but there are variants included such as the legend cards, the explore tokens, citadel tokens and encounter tokens. Which adds to the replayability of the game.

I like that the end game is achieved when every player has a certain number of cards in front of them (dependent on the number of players, in our three player game it was ten cards). So this means you have a finite number of turns to the game, a finite number of actions.

I like this game, it will be interesting to see how the variants affect the game play. Plus I have the expansion also which I haven't even looked at yet.

I'm glad this finally got to the table. I can't wait to get it back onto the table.

Another great afternoon gaming at Costa.

 

Minor building works

new arrivals
It's been a quiet week on building the collection. In fact if today's new arrival hadn't come there would have been no new additions at all.
Way back earlier in the year I took the opportunity to pre-order the 51st State “reboot” by Portal Games. That pre-order arrived this morning.
Portal ran their pre-order like a Kickstarter with “bonuses” being unlocked the more pre-orders they got. Here is the infographic they did to show what people were getting:
 

Going through the box after opening was like going through the layers of a chocolate box, each layer more delicious than the other.

The game with its wooden components and cardboard tokens do look gorgeous.

The instructions have a sense of humour that I really love, and bought a smile to my face with a little chuckle too.

The only down side from this wonderfully presented game is that it was missing the transfer sheet, and also it says two wooden faction discs with stickers and there was only one! So now I guess it's time to see what the Portal Customer support is like.

UPDATE just after posting: so we have a mini expansion in the game as part of the pre-order bonuses. Back of the tiles direct you to the website for the rules, which when you go there are nowhere to be found! It's the little things… And the ocd side of me is kicking in and starting to take the gloss off the warm fuzzy feeling I had opening the game.

Oh and you can read the collected game designer diary here (it's a PDF)

 

Arriving to a FLGS next week 16May16

news

There wasn’t anything last from the goodies we got showered with that caught my eye.

However from their bountiful riches that they deem us worthy to have three things caught my eye.

First up is a game I backed on Kickstarter Kodama, which is hitting the shelves at an rrp of £17.99. 

The game hasn’t hit my table yet, so I can’t pass comment on the game apart from its beautiful art.


Next up hot on the heels of the Omens of Ice expansion for Elder Sign comes Grave Consequences at £10.99. This did take me by surprise because somehow it had avoided my radar.

Apparently this expansion adds fifty new cards to the game.

“The cards from Grave Consequences are divided into three modular decks: Phobia, Epic Battle, and Epitaph. These decks and their cards can be used together or separately, and they’re all fully compatible with the core game, as well as all of its expansions.”

So sounds interesting.

Finally I’m not even sure why this was made. Thirty Munchkin meeples for £17.99! Why? I’m trying to think what game I’d use them with and coming up with nothing. 

So that’s the treats to look forward to next week.

As long as a John Bonham Drum Solo

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night was the second Wednesday of the month and so the regular monthly Fenland Gamers meetup was held at its usual location in Wisbech.

We kind of had a theme last night of gateway/casual games. With a friend of mine from Peterborough and her daughter coming along for the first time, who aren't “gamers” but more noobs having played and loved Tsuro and Love Letter in the past and definitely not into the heavier side of gaming, our selection of games played were aimed at them.

Now I should point out that just because the games played are considered to be on the lighter side, that they are still great fun games for the more hardened gamer. Two of our evenings games are from my collection so that should say how I feel about those two games.

Our evenings gaming started off with a game of Sushi Go. Is it really nearly a year since I first played this game at the UK Games Expo, and bought instantly after the demo game? Drafting and set collection, great fun colourful art work. This is a lovely little game. And nearly a year later I still love it. I think the secret with these sort of games is not to over play them otherwise you get burned out, and no longer enjoy playing them. Having a variety of games that fill the same role that you can rotate, switch around, definitely is the secret to keeping these games fresh and favourites.

Our game of Sushi Go this evening was won by Katie.

We followed Sushi Go up with Batman Fluxx. This was an epic game of Fluxx. I don't think I've played a game of Fluxx that last this long, we must have been easily forty to fifty minutes. We had loads of new rules out, they'd get reset to the basic rules, then the new rules would build up. Everyone was trying to find a way to manipulate the cards to give them the win, but not getting close. We cycled through the discard pile twice!

I ended up with the goal that needed five or more Villians out in front of players and the Bat signal. Katie had the Bat signal in front of her. I had an action that allowed me to steal it. Wait I can win this on my next go, as long as no one else has a way of getting a win.

Jonathan took his go, no win. Then it was Katie, no win. My friends daughter, no win. Finally before my turn, my friend. Her last play was discard your hand then draw that number cards you discarded. Sixteen cards discarded, sixteen new cards! Why? Why would you do that?

Right my turn…

I got cocky, I asked Jonathan to draw my cards and just place them face down because I didn't care what they were! Right play my first card and steal the Bat signal from Katie. But Jonathan decided to throw a curve ball in my plan and bring it to an early end. He interrupted my action and instead was allowed to steal from my keepers. Damn! Right new rule Play All, OK better look at my hand. Wait, I still have a card I can play to steal the Bat signal. With the Bat signal safely in front of me, time to play the new goal and get the win!!! Victory! That was very closely me falling flat on my face in an embarrassing way after me being so cocky.

But what an epic long game.

Our final game of the evening was Camel Up. This is my second time playing the game. I gather Jonathan's kids must like it, because we suspect they played it last after Jonathan found it hadn't been packed away “correctly”.

Camel Up is a beautiful looking game. The pyramid dice shaker being the obvious show stopper of the game. The eyes are just attracted to it on the board. Not the most practical of things, but a wonderful tactile bit of theatrics.

Camel Up isn't in my collection. I don't like it enough to add it. Don't get me wrong the two times I've played it now I've had fun. But Colt Express fills a similar role in my collection.

Oh for the history books Katie walked away with the honours here too.

Whilst putting together the games to take for the evening I was going to throw in Age of War. But for the love of it I couldn't find it. I'd seen it earlier in the day. But now no sign of it. I could feel that little itch that starts when I lose something starting to kick in. I'd find no rest until I found it or got a replacement.

When I got home after a great evening gaming, I found the game. It was sitting under some Lego!! Mystery solved, itch stopped. I'd be able to sleep.

 

Duelling Decks

game night, magic
It was Tuesday, not a Formula D league night, so must have been Warlords Chatteris club night.
A new prospective member turned up last night with his Magic deck. We had chatted on the clubs Facebook page, so I acted as “host” for the evening. Heck the things I do for the club like having to play Magic with some-one.
We played our own preconstructed decks to start with, with Chris sitting in coaching the other person. Well we were/are still both relatively noobs to the game.
I was able to win by chipping away four points at a time.
Our second game was using the Blessed v Cursed Duel Decks from the new Shadows Over Innistrad set. These are prebuilt decks designed to battle each other. My opponent chose the black/blue deck, which was zombies and vampires. Whilst I had the White/blue deck, so angels and humans. I got an early advantage with flying monsters ie angels that weren't getting blocked. But that ground to a halt once my opponent got a couple of flying monsters, and stared building up a few monsters to eventually attack with. Neither of us attacked whilst we were building up our battlefields waiting to get the tactical advantage. Which fell to me first with having not just a superiority in number of flyers, but the total damage that would get through after being blocked was enough for me to deliver the knock out blow.
Our third and final game of Magic was another duel deck but this time from Zendikar. In fact it was easy to see I hadn't played these two decks because the cards were still sealed! There was some nice nback and forth. My opponent cleared my battlefield down to one monster with an instant, it also removed his token monsters he had out. But my single left monster and a land I could turn into a monster were enough for me to take the win again.
A great evening for me. A clean sweep of victories, I won't get that for a while playing Magic.
 

 

An Alternate Game Night

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night was the last forced break from Pandemic Legacy due to holidays in warmer climates by a team member. Wait I wonder if I can make that sound even more passive aggressive? Anyway not to waste permission slips etc the rest of our team met up to play games.

First to the table was Glass Road. This time we were going to play it correctly!

Wow what a big difference that made. It's a very fast game when played correctly, thirty to forty minutes for the three of us. I do like the resource management using the two dials with the auto production of glass and bricks.

Now during last nights game I got the pond with a shark in it! Does this count as an Easter egg in the game? But I love little touches like this, Imperial Settlers has these in its art. It adds a nice like side chat during game play “oh look…”

My tactic in the game ended up being buying tiles with as high a victory point score on as possible, over ones that had a variable score based on the amount of a specific resource. Which after the final scoring saw me victorious by a single point.

Our second game of the evening was Traders of Osaka. This game was good as a two player game, but as a three player game? Wow!

It scaled nicely, it's just as much fun if not more so. Plus the game becomes more tactical, especially on the reserving cards, and buying the market. Timing is everything. Reserving cards becomes more a decision of do I want this card to advance my plans, or do I need to stop this card being taken to deny my opponents a scoring opportunity?

For example early on I was able to get the yellow ship to Edo for a payday, leaving green and red in dangerous waters and sinking. This wiped out Mat's green and red cards in front of him, he had no yellow. While doing the same to Jonathan however he was able to score two points on yellow, while I was able to score four points.

The other nice thing is that the market is changing more variable with more players, causing you to think on your feet and adjust plans.

Yeah Traders of Osaka is fast becoming a favourite.

After some chat such as how the box for Bohemian Villages could be smaller, however it's not upto the levels of Machi Koro for over sized boxes, we said our farewells.

Another great evening of gaming, and a clean sweep of wins for me!

Last weeks new stuff weekending 7May16

new arrivals
The week started off with a Kickstarter project I had backed finally arriving. Although not about boardgames, it's about video games, specifically ones from the eighties and an amazing software house called Hewson.
The book was written by Andrew Hewson, who over came health issues to finish this book about his time in the UK games industry running one of the top video game companies in the country. Hewson put out some really great games like Paradroid, Uridium and Gibbly's Day Out. So I'm super stoked this has arrived. I really enjoy reading about the stories behind some of my favourite games back in the day.
The next new arrival I had totally forgotten had been ordered (way back in November if I'm remembering it right). So it was a complete surprise when it turns up. I just wasn't expecting it. My friend William said he had received an email that he was getting his, but I saw nothing warning me of its imminent arrival. Have to admit it was a rather nice surprise.
With its arrival it also acts as a pleasant reminder I do need to get Zombicide back to the table.
Way back on this blog I had a rant about why companies didn't release official playmats for their games. I think I even used Splendor as an example.
Even with there being an official mat to buy, it's not easy to get hold of. But with the interweb making borders irrelevant this one winged it's way from somewhere in the EU (can't remember where).
I do like the design of the official mat, it has some nice little touches that aid setup.
I have to admit I do prefer the look of the unofficial one I had made using a design I got off bgg if memory serves me right. Which now has a new home.

But boy is the official mat heavy! The heaviest one I have come across. It's thicker in depth, and has a larger play area.

Now I have the urge to play Splendor again…