All posts by Darren

Dice Down

game night

After getting Nico chipped yesterday, yes I know the vet was playing with death, I made it to the Friday evening gaming group that meets up at the Con Club.

Naturally when I got there games were already in progress.

My first game of the evening was taking over some-ones hand at Star Realms when they had to go off and setup for their game of Warhammer 40k I think it was. So I'm not counting this as my play. The player I took over from was a noob to the game, I believe this was his first time playing. Needless to say the deck I took over wasn't great. Lots of cards I wouldn't buy. However it did allow me to knock Ben out of the game. Then mirroring the previous time I played a four player Star Realms game I was knocked out.

It then remained for the back and forth between the two remaining players. Both able to keep topping up their authority each turn. However the superior base and outpost purchases of one player gave her the win, and more authority than she started with.

The first proper game of the evening for me was Dead of Winter. While setting up it was discovered my exposure dice was missing! We had a good look for it, but it was not to be found, so we improvised with a d10.

We did the suggested first main mission that required us to kill a certain number of zombies (based on the number of players) but they would only count if when killed a d6 was rolled and it had a value of four or higher.

All I'm going to say is my group of survivors drew the short stick when it came to longevity of life. Let's just say my rolling of the improvised exposure dice, and the others in the group who did it for me too, were not great rolls. My survivors were getting bitten a lot. This may sound callous but if we had beat the main mission would have meant I'd met my secret objective and won.

The round counter was ticking down slowly, but because of survivors being bitten and their death, and the failure to complete a crisis we failed the mission due to running out of morale.

It's a shame the exposure dice was missing/lost. It did kind of ruin my enjoyment of the game. After a search at home and still no sign of the dice, I was straight onto Plaid Hat to get a replacement organised. Very quick response from them directing me to a replacements page to fill in, that actually requires a photo of the bar code of the game box as proof of purchase and allow them to track faulty batches. So the replacement is in progress, but will I be able to play the game and enjoy it in the meantime? I don't know. Even with the replacement sorted, it's eating away at me about what happened to the exposure dice. I don't remember seeing the dice the other day when I was putting the standees together. Damn how long has this been missing?

I'm going to pass judgement and thoughts of the game until the exposure dice has been replaced.

Our final game of the evening was Tiny Epic Galaxies. A game I won with 21 points, however Ben was looking at coming last, but jumped into second because he had completed his secret mission.

A good evening of gaming despite the missing dice.

 

Coming Out Next Week Starting 4Apr16

Uncategorized

Yes it's Friday and the marketing spokesperson for Esdevium has come down from Mount Olympus and left some stone tablets for us to peruse. So here is the stuff on the tablets that caught my eye…

First up we have the most important release of the week for me and other Netrunner players, and that is the third data pack in the Mumbad cycle Democracy and Dogma.

I enjoy Zombie Dice and I believe Dalek Dice maybe similar to it. So being a Doctor Who fan, although the current Doctor has been ruined by poor scripts and development, this certainly is high on my wish list.

If I was playing Dice City more this expansion would be an instant buy. At the moment it will be going on the wish list. Finally hitting our shores is the deluxe version of Tokaido.

Sneaking out next week is the third T.I.M.E. Stories expansion, which I believe has an ancient Egyptian theme this time. Plus that really excellent deck builder Eminent Domain is getting two new expansions.

As I write this post in LGS all around the country Friday Night Magic is still probably going on later than normal. At midnight those players will be taking part in a midnight pre-release of the next Magic release Shadows Over Innistrad. Then over the weekend the same stores will be running other pre-release events also. Then next week guess what? Yep Shadows Over Innistrad hits the shops officially.

There will also be launch events next weekend at the stores. There are also naturally a range of playmats, deck boxes and card sleeves also being released next week to go along with this latest release.

 

Stats for March 2016

by the numbers, stats

With March just ending its that time again to look at my gaming stats for the month.

Wow what a month hey? I thought I had done really well in February. Especially considering it's a shorter month than the others. But holy game pieces Batman I've blown that out of the water. Sadly as the locations show there were no Costa gaming sessions. So that will be an aim for April to get that being a thing again!
Thanks to the magic of Numbers I can produce a nice little graph to show my gaming trends. I think it's going to be hard to top March, and expect to see a dip next month. Hopeful not a big dip though.

March also happens to be the end of the first quarter for the year, so time to review the following that I wrote back in January.

So how did I do? Well as the games stats at the start show I got three of the five to the table. Which I think is not bad. Five Tribes was definitely the biggest hit of the three. Discoveries was a good game, but the wooden dice are horrid. As for Arena of the Planeswalker that game has so much potential but let down by poor support by the publisher.

But as I said in the initial post I'll be setting a list of five each quarter. We are now in a new quarter and therefore need a new list of games to try and get to the table.

  • Ashes
  • T.I.M.E. Stories
  • Thunderbirds
  • Dead of Winter
  • Imperial Settlers

Games that nearly made the list this month but just missed out: Elder Sign, Neuroshima Hex!, Seasons, Roll for the Galaxy and Eminent Domain. Who knows maybe they will make it to the table anyway.

So that was my gaming month by the numbers.

 

The Month of July

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

Oh spoiler alert. Yes it's that post again where I talk about my latest play through of Pandemic Legacy Season 1, which may or may not include spoilers. So if you want to remain oblivious to what happens in the game so that you too can experience all its twists and turns as surprises then stop reading now and see you in the next post.

She was only with us for a short time but her light shone brightly in that time. Last night Wanda the quarantine specialist passed away after a rather vicious attack by one of the faded fatally wounded her.

Basically last night the Scooby gang (yes I went there) finally after a couple of delays got to tackle the month of July in Pandemic Legacy Season 1.

Our first attempt at defeating July failed miserably. We did complete an objective or two, and were working on finding cures for all three diseases, when epidemics turned into pandemics and outbreaks just over ran us. It all happened so fast we didn't know what hit us.

One thing we had to do was build a research station in a city that was faded. Why? Well that's where the virologist is hiding who may have a cure for the faded! Well we are assuming it's a cure, we won't know until we find them (a new objective) and can reveal on the card what they have discovered.

Our second attempt at completing July was off to a good start. We automatically complete one objective now each game, because we have a military base in each zone. Which means only two objectives to complete.

We had two diseases eradicated, another objective down, and with Hawkeye sitting with enough cards to cure the final disease we were damn close to winning. However the faded were ripe for out breaking big time. Our team just needed to get to Hawkeyes turn.

On B's turn an epidemic hit causing a minor outbreak placing a faded in the city Wanda was in. She already had two scars. At the start of her turn she was dead!

It came round to Wandas turn, the faded delivered its fatal blow to her. A civilian popped into her place to try and carry on her good work. But to no avail, another epidemic hit, this time the faded damn burst, the tidal wave of pandemics started to hit, we could have survived but ran out of faded figures. Game over.

That was close, damn close.

Looks like another new team member joins us for August.

 

It’s drafty

chatteris warlords, game night, netrunner

At the weekly Chatteris Warlords meetup last night there was a Netrunner Draft going on, whilst some X-Wing and historical ship miniatures games were being played, amongst other stuff.

I've done two or three drafts before, a D&D Dicemasters one at last years UK Games Expo, and a couple of Epic drafts (one with Nath and one at this weekly meetup).

I'm still kind of undecided how I really feel about drafts. I like them, nay enjoy them even. Do I love them?

Netrunner is a LCG where you pre-construct decks to play with. Everyone has the same pool of cards to build from. There are no blind boosters. So Netrunner doesn't lend itself to being able to do drafting like you can with say Magic the Gathering or Dicemasters.

So FFG came up with a solution to this that allows Netrunner players to draft.

Basically FFG sell you three decks that go together. The first deck is a base one that contains a draft runner id, a draft corp id, and a few core cards. Everyone gets the same cards in this base deck. The other two decks are made up of one for the corp and one for the runner.

Each of these two decks are made up of forty random cards chosen from a card pool of two hundred odd cards I believe. They are randomly chosen at time of printing at the FFG card printing shop they own in the US (they use this for the small run stuff like these draft decks, promo cards etc).

Starting with the corp deck you split the four cards into “packs” of ten by dealing from the top of the deck without looking at them or shuffling before hand. You then follow normal drafting rules using the four packs. You then repeat this for the runner deck.

After drafting you go off to your private spot to build a corp and runner deck from the cards you drafted. Having built your decks you pair up and duke it out as per normal in Netrunner, except you play to six agenda points instead of seven.

So having been through all of the above I played Ben. Our first game was my corp against his runner. Which ended in a victory for Ben. However I had an early Sundew and pad campaign giving me lots of credits, plus some ice out. Ben hit my snare in R&D. Unluckily he scored agendas that were in my HQ to get the win.

Our second game the roles were reversed. Ben had a scoring server iced up, had iced up his HQ and left R&D wide open. Ben had a card on his scoring server that he was advancing big time. It was either an ambush that was going to hurt me big time when I ran into it, or an agenda that gained extra points the more advancement tokens on it. It turned out to be the later, a Project Beale scored as four agenda points. I soon caught up scoring from the unprotected R&D. I was hitting R&D at least once a turn for free!

Ben installed a new card on his scoring server and advanced it once and iced up his R&D. Too little too late, I ran on his R&D, I couldn't break the ice or its subroutines, but there was no end of run, so I was through and scored the winning agenda.

So the evening ended a draw between myself and Ben.

It certainly was interesting drafting in Netrunner. Not having to worry about influence, or number of copies of cards whilst building your deck, certainly make for some interesting decisions and combinations.

For instance I drafted Wyldside, which gave me card draw, but also costs me a click. I ended up with Rachel Beckman (seemed to be a card no one wanted, I think due to cost, eight credit cost to install is expensive). With no pancakes to get the click back, Rachel Beckman is a costly but effective alternative in this limited card pool. You get one extra click to spend each turn, plus she gets discarded when you take a tag. So a little tag protection. The synergy didn't occur to me while drafting, but when deck building from my drafted cards.

Drafting I think makes a fun break from the regular deck building. I think it might be more popular if Esdevium/FFG didn't price the latest draft set so expensively. At the moment for those that want to draft the only way people can play it cost effectively is to buy the older sets.

Another great evening running.

Meat Damage

expansions, Fenland Gamers, game night, netrunner, painting

Easter Monday, a bank holiday in the UK, and the last day in a four day weekend that started on Good Friday. For some it's a religious holiday celebrating the death and resurrection of Christ, for others it's just a long weekend and an excuse to pig out of chocolate. On the chocolate front I pig out after Easter when the shops reduce the price of their Easter eggs, more sugar high for your money.

My Easter Monday afternoon was spent at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole at Chatteris.

I was there for an informal painting workshop that was being run. I was given a Warhammer tyranid that had already got a base coat on so was ready for painting to practice with. After doing a poor job painting the main areas, I got to try dry brushing. A technique I have wanted to get a grasp of. Yes I knew the theory of doing it. But needed the confidence to do it. Having the practice miniature and guidance was enough to help give confidence I needed.

Naturally I hadn't gone to the store empty handed. I had a small bag of games and decks with me also.

I had leant my copy of Get Bit! I'd taken along to a family there to play with. It was the least I could do having won a game of Fluxx with them. After the painting I got roped into playing a two player game of Get Bit! In the two player variant both players play two robots. The game was enjoyable, not earth shattering. It won't be leaving my collection soon, but only because I have very few games that youngsters can play.

Chris and I played our first game of Netrunner. It was my Shaper deck against his Jinteki Corp deck. Chris won this easily scoring agendas. He'd built up a nice scoring server that was well protected. I was getting cards in place, but economy was an issue this time for me this time. Not having funds to make runs because you can't pump your ice breakers isn't good.

Our second game saw his Kate deck against my NBN Corp deck. Turn one I set a trap for the runner in a single remote server, iced up R&D and HQ, on the runners turn they played a couple of cards, did a run on my trap and took a tag. “How many cards are in your hand?” I enquired not casually enough. I think the runner knew what was coming. Scorched Earth, BAM! Turn two kill!

Quickest win of my short time playing Netrunner. Wow that was like shockingly amazing.

We reset and played again. This time the game played out more like a typical game. Once again early on I had the cards to do the kill in hand. But the runner was more careful in avoiding tags this time.

My little “tricks” we're playing out. I let the runner score some one point agendas and getting Franchise City scored in response. The runner scored 15 Minutes, that went back into R&D on my turn. I was allowed to keep two Pad Campaigns in play, even with three agendas in hand and a Scorched Earth, I was still able to create lots of new servers. The bottom of R&D was getting loaded up with agendas thanks to Daily Business Show. The runner had even taken News Team as a minus one agenda point to avoid taking a tag.

The game came down to one final play, if the runner failed on the run I'd won, because I could score out the agenda. The first ice they hit was a Wraparound, which got +7 strength, breaking that with Crypsis emptied the runners pockets of credits. Next up Turnpike, the runner gets a tag – finally! Then he final piece of ice an Enigma that the runner was able to break. Bugger they were through and got the win. Next turn I could have played the two Scorched Earth to kill them, or scored the agenda.

What a fantastic game. Who cares that I lost, it was a blast.

After a flurry of text messages from Jonathan, our Pandemic Legacy evening was moved to Wednesday, and transformed in to a three player gaming evening.

Our first game of the evening was naturally Five Tribes, since in the text exchange Jonathan had said he wanted to play the game again. How much did Jonathan like the game? Well in a virtual shopping basket in a virtual store, in a virtual world, is a virtual copy waiting to be turned into a real physical item in meat space once a virtual button has been pressed, and digits representing money are moved from one virtual place to another. Or without all that waffle, it's sitting in his Amazon basket.

Once again Jonathan's tactic of buying items, ignoring the djinns or clearing tiles paid off and gave him the win. Obviously I'm really bad at this game and came in last by a point to Debbie. A single point!

We then switched things up by playing Five Tribes again but this time with the expansion The Artisans of Naqala. Wow this is a great expansion. It doesn't add tonnes of stuff, but boy oh boy. With the mountains and chasm more thought has to be given to routes, because these obstacles have to be gone round. The sixth tribe adds a new scoring avenue and power ups, the tent wooden token, adds a scoring booster. It's a very nice expansion that doesn't overload you with new rules to learn, it just fits very naturally with the base game.

Jonathan and Debbie's scoring just went ballistic this game, Jonathan burst through the two hundred points barrier. Debbie hit 179 points, while I managed to beat my previous score but was way way way behind the other two on scoring. So yes I lost again and Jonathan won.

We finished off the evening playing a couple of games of Batman Fluxx. I won the first game, while Debbie took the win for the second game. Like Love Letter with Fluxx you choose the theme you like and play that. Some slight changes to rules, the way things play, but you expect that. In Batman Fluxx keepers have abilities/rules that can be used. For example I think it was the Batmobile I could discard to gain another turn straight away at the end of mine. Or the Batcave increases the number of cards you can draw, hand limit, play by one.

I enjoy Fluxx, I like the changing rules and goals. It's not everyone's taste, I think the theme for tonight was right, and the others enjoyed playing it.

So a great bank holiday playing games, doesn't get better than that.

 

My Favourite Card Games

tabletop

Recently The Dice Tower did their top ten card games. I was taken a back how little their lists matched mine. How they rate Thunderstone I still don't know. That game is as boring as watching paint dry.

Card games can have so many gaming mechanisms in them such as drafting, set collection, trick taking. Be played solo, two player or multi player. Basically I'm saying they are very versatile.

So here is my top ten not in any particular order…

  • Lost Cities – a classic Reiner Knizia two player card game about discovering lost cities! Lots of depth here, play a card draw a card seems simple right? Not so simple, because there are lots of decisions to be made, do I play this card, do I hold on to it because my opponent needs it, do I start a new row? High score wins, great two player game.
  • Star Realms – I think regular readers will know how I feel about this little deckbuilder. I'm getting a warm feeling already just thinking about it. Amazing two player deckbuilder, fast, amazing depth for such a small game. Fantastic value, everything you need in a single box. This is a classic.
  • Love Letter – how many copies do I own of this? A few. Bought several times because I usually end up giving copies away to friends and family. I love this game. My favourite version is the Batman Love Letter. Great with three or four players. Can be played by two, but not my preferred number to play with. This game can be taught and learnt in a couple of minutes. There is an expansion for the classic set coming out that will allow upto eight players to play at once, and a deluxe version.
  • Munchkin – the marmite of the gaming world. People either love it or hate it. I fall on the love it side. I don't play this every gaming session, but when it does hit the table I have a great time. I think this is a game that you need the right bunch of people with. The take that, backstabbing, ganging up that happens isn't everyone's cup of tea. Plus it can get to the point that everyone is holding back their big screw others over cards to near the end to deny other players from getting to the final level to win. With the expansions (of which there are many) and themed versions (like superheroes) there is a lot of replay/variety.
  • Fluxx – take a card, play a card. That's the starting rules. After that who knows what the rules will be or how you will win? It's all down to the cards played, and things change each time a card is played. Like Love Letter there are a few versions of this game with different themes, like Firefly, Batman, Zombies etc. Choose your theme and play away.
  • Eminent Domain – yet another deck builder. A great one though. Space empire building with lots of depth, different tracks to victory to follow. Little down time between turns because you are doing stuff on your opponents turn. Theme comes across really well. There is a reason why Nath enjoyed playing this. It's a great game.
  • Haggis – this trick taking and card shedding game won me over when I was introduced to it. There is a small gambling element where you bet on whether you will get rid of all your cards first. But a great two player game that can play a third, although I've not played it with three.
  • Marvel Legendary – this superhero deck builder is so superior to the crappy DC one. This is a co-op game, that can also be played solo. Plus even though it is a co-op game it can have a winner! There are lots of expansions for this game adding new heroes and Villians, and game play mechanics. The secret to this game is organisation. Being organised allows quick setup, and the extra time at game pack up does pay off in the setup next game. Having a hard time choosing a superhero team and Villian to fight, download one of the apps that will choose for you based on what you have purchased.
  • Epic – that Magic experience in a single box. Although you can get duel decks for a little bit more than Epic for the full on Magic experience. This gives so much more value and options for play from pre-constructed decks, to different drafting formats, which duelling decks don't offer. One box can support up to four players in some of the formats. Only thing you do need is a way to track life totals, but they have an app for that.
  • Android Netrunner – I'm getting that warm feeling again! I LOVE Netrunner from its amazing awesome theme, to the art and flavour text, which bring out the theme even more. Oh and then you have the game mechanics. This game has so much depth in the game play, bluffing, mind games, hidden information, there is a lot more to Netrunner than Magic.

Honourable Mentions…

Or games that nearly made the list that I really like. If I didn't like them they wouldn't be in my collection. For some of them it was a really tough decision to make.

 

  • Magic the Gathering
  • Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn
  • Machi Koro
  • Imperial Settlers
  • Lost Legacy
  • Tides of Time
  • 7 Wonders
  • Coup
  • Gloom
  • Sushi Go

In my collection but not played yet…

Or as I like to call it the card games section of my pile of shame. These WILL make it to the table some day..

 

  • District-Z
  • Valley of the Kings
  • Legendary Encounters Aliens/Predator
  • Best Treehouse Ever
  • Brewcrafters
  • Deaddrop
  • Chaotic Life
  • Artic Scavengers
  • Hanabi

I have to admit I try and avoid these types of post. I don't like them. In my defense or to help me sleep at night I haven't tried to click bait this post with a title like “top games to …”. It really annoys me seeing posts like that because it is obvious what the site is doing. Usually the posts say nothing, are full of affiliate links to Amazon or some other site. I hate them.

Epic New Stuff 26Mar16

epic, expansions, new arrivals, star realms

Another week and more good more stuff dropping through the letter box.

From my FLGS I got the latest Fluxx to hit our stores Firefly Fluxx. As an incentive to buy from your FLGS or LGS if they are not that friendly when you buy from a store it should come with a promo card for the game too.

I also finally crumbled and got the Batman Fluxx. This had been on my wishlist for a long time.
Tiny Epic Kingdoms Second Edition, plus Heroes Call it's expansion qualifies as my first delivered Kickstarter of the year.
Star Realms Colony Wars is on its way (somewhere in the postal system) but I knew I didn't have enough sleeves for the new arrivals. So three packets of sleeves dropped on the mat this morning to solve that problem.
Finally a real bargain (aren't they all?) appeared on Facebook for three copies of the Kickstarter version of the game (that's basically the base game plus promos). I'd mentioned it to a friend who asked me to get it for them. So here we are a box full of awesome, ready for delivery Tuesday.

 

Hitting next week starting 28Mar16

news

Only one thing of interest in my world coming out next week via our Esdevium/Asmodee overlords. That something is the first expansion for Epic the Card Game from White Wizard Games, Tyrants.

I'm a bit disappointed in pricing. Each of the four packs that make the expansion up contain twelve new cards. So for forty eight new cards the cost is more than the base card set of one hundred and twenty. Plus if you are running three sets to make an epic cube how many copies of these expansions do you need?

I'm hoping that with this expansion hitting retail that my FLGS will be able to order the game day and tournament kits.

While I'm talking White Wizard Games and their great games, apparently hitting Kickstarter soon is a new version of Star Realms with a fantasy theme called Hero Realms. Excited by this news. I hope they don't make the same mistakes they did with Cthulhu Realms, ie over iconify the cards.

 

Magic Batman

game night

This afternoon saw me at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole. I'd promised to let the owners daughter play Magic a The Gathering Arena of the Planeswalkers after she saw it being played the other weekend. It's important that you keep your word to little people.

Despite getting some hits in taking out some creatures, I still got beaten. When it came to doing the defensive rolls I seemed to be rolling like Jonathan does in Memoir and Battlelore, badly!

I can see the owner getting some pressure to get a copy! Which he had admitted he was getting a little bit of over Love Letter. I'd introduced his daughter to the game the other night at the Warlords gaming meet. Apparently the is idea he sells me stuff, not me introduce his daughter to games that he then has to buy. Oops ^__^

After being defeated at Arena of the Planeswalkers we had a game of Batman Love Letter. Being a two player game, we played first to eight points. Which I won with a massive nine points to three. I scored two at the end to get the win (that's guessing the other players card with a Batman card).

It was a fun afternoon.

And I'm back Monday for a painting workshop being held at the store.