All posts by Darren

Driving Miss Daisy

Fenland Gamers, game night, star realms, tabletop

Last night saw the monthly meet up of the Fenland Gamers. After a quick discussion about why I had handed in my notice at work, we had to decide on a game to play. I suggested that we played…

Formula D

I've wanted to play Formula D for a while, I even picked up a second hand copy off the Facebook trading and selling page late last year. Sadly I hadn't got my copy to the table. Over the previous weekend Gavin and I discussed what games we would be bringing along to the evening. Gavin mentioned he had got Formula D for Christmas, so being the lazy person I am (hey these games aren't light to carry you know), I encouraged Gavin to bring along his copy for us to play.

Before the race started we rolled for our starting positions on the grid. I was at the back of the grid in the fifth spot. The omens weren't looking good, my first dice roll, and I was rolling low.

I was going to have to drive aggressively if I was to make up for my poor starting position. I was determined to fight my way to the front and make a historic win.

We were playing the beginners rules.

I managed to claw my way into contention for first place with Jonathan and Gavin, by using some great rolls of the dice (oh yes I was rolling high when I needed to be low, truly the dice hated me), managing my damage, and when I'd take it on corners to catch up and put myself in the running.

Katie managed to join the battle for first on the last two or three corners. However Gavin stole first place, with a close second going to me. I think Jonathan was third with Katie coming in fourth and a distant last Debbie.

In fact it was Debbie and her distance behind the pack that inspired the title of this blog post. Yes it seemed like Debbie was driving Miss Daisy in her little plastic formula one car round the race track.

In an old episode of the Simpsons where if my fading memory is not playing tricks on me the Simpson family are racing round a kart track, Marge says “slow and steady wins the race”. This indeed did seem to be Debbie's game plan for Formula D.

Now as you may have guessed there was some “gentle” banter at the table about Debbie in last place. And while Jonathan was plotting to take any shine off a historic win (if I had gone on to win it), Debbie too was plotting her revenge for the next game.

Wow I enjoyed playing Formula 6 a lot. It's more than a simple just roll and move game. There are some tactics to employ. The game cleverly uses different sided dice to represent the different gears of the formula one car you are racing in. These dice have different number ranges on them. For example in fourth gear you will roll the green dice that only has values in the range seven to twelve.

You have to stop a predetermined number of times on each corner. One corner may be once, while another might be three times. So you have to plan which gear you need to be in so that you are rolling numbers that allow you to stop the required number of times.

Then you have damage to your car, end up adjacent to another players car, and you both roll to see if you take damage. Fail to stop the correct number of times on a corner, take damage. Take too much damage and your car engine blows up. So managing your damage is an important factor. In the advanced version of the game, this damage is applied to more specific areas of the car.

The game does a fantastic job of simulating the “thrills” of racing round a track. I'm not a formula one fan, I find watching it boring. But I still enjoyed playing Formula D.

Hopefully Jonathan's idea of having a Formula D league can see the light of day for our group. It certainly would be fun.

The next game of the evening to hit the table was…

Ticket to Ride: Europe (TTR:E) aka Debbie's Revenge! Her part in my downfall

I've played TTR:E only within the rather excellent app version of the boardgame. And only then a couple of times at most.

Naturally the map for TTR:E is a map of Europe instead of the U.S. Of A. for the original game. We didn't play with the stations, a decision Gavin, Jonathan and myself would later on come to regret. However we were using the other additions of tunnels, ferries and long routes.

I really wasn't focusing during the initial stages of the game. I had not a clue what I was doing, what carriages I should have been collecting, the optimal routine I should be having to complete etc etc.

Did this lackadaisical approach at the start of the game cost me the game? Well it didn't help.

There was a lot of routes being built in Northern Europe by everyone. It was becoming very clogged, and gave Debbie her first chance to get her revenge by building a route I needed. It happened again later on, forcing me to try another way to complete my longest route. I needed two links to complete my long route and get twenty one points after being blocked by Debbie, and forced to find another way to complete my card.

I had one pink in hand, was planning to take the multi coloured engine my next go ready to complete my long route. When BANG! Katie played her last four trains to complete her card and end the game!

I had finished an eight point route only, got totally shut out by Katie and Debbie from completing my twelve point route, and now had failed to complete my long twenty one point route by two pink trains.

So during the end scoring while everyone else was happily adding on lots of points for completing cards, I went backwards. If Katie had scored nine more points she would have lapped me on the score board. I think this was my lowest scoring game of TTR ever!

The final game of the evening was the new crowd pleaser…

Codenames

So that the teams were even I sat this one out.

After taking a call from Kate, I had a bit of good news about a potential opportunity. Which was followed by a call from Nath. Who I thought was calling to gloat about ARSEnal being three two up against my beloved Liverpool. But no, he was telling me to take my go because he was going to win on his next go on Star Realms.

I took my go, which did some damage to him, but more importantly parked an outpost on the board and increased my authority. Which meant Nath was not able to get the win he was predicting. Although to be fair I only delayed the inevitable by about four turns.

But back to me being a bad Dad and disappointing my sons plans for victory at that moment in time. After Nath had taken his turn I got a text that was one word “lucky”. About five minutes later when Liverpool had scored a last minute equaliser in extra time I got another text “lucky lucky lucky”.

Back at the gaming table the game of Codenames was progressing. Now both teams ended up winning a game each. However I have to say I enjoyed spectating this game, and trying to work out which word(s) were meant by the clue.

This was another blooming brilliant evening of gaming, with great company. Thanks folks.

 

House ruling Zombicide Ranged Attacks

zombicide

One of the critisms of Zombicide, if not the main one, was the ranged weapon rule below:

What is so bad about that rule? It's that survivors get shot first when you fire with a ranged weapon into a zone with zombies and survivors in. And that held true unless you had the scope on the rifle. I played it as it was, but I know others chose to ignore it. It certainly for some detracted from the game.
In the later half of last year Cool Mini Or Not ran a rather successful Kickstarter for a spin off Zombicide game called Zombicide: Black Plaque. This took Zombicide from its modern day zombie apocalypse setting and placed it smack damn into a medieval setting.
Now I didn't back this new version of Zombicide, which I think would be fair to call it Zombicide 2.0. Mainly because I had a lot of the original version and was happy with the modern setting. Which for me why I like it. I love the way it invokes the Romero zombie movies, like Dawn of the Dead. One of the expansions Toxic City Mall is set in a mall. While Prison Outbreak you could pretend you are the Walking Dead survivors holed up in the prison they hole up in. I just love that theming.
However in my travels on the interweb I did come across that in Black Plague the ranged weapon rule had been modified. It “fixed” the main complaint players had of the original game. Not only that, but some players were using this new rule in their games instead of the original rule.

The ruling had been changed that if you rolled a hit, you hit the zombies and not the survivors in your target zone. If however you rolled a miss, you hit the survivor. That to me is a brilliant fix. It gives a bit of tension to the roll of the dice, and doesn't break the theme. Missing has repercussions, brilliant. I can hear the banter now about if only a survivor was a better shot.

I'd like to think that we will see Cool Mini Or Not update the rules both online and in the physical copy of the game to take this “fix” into account.

In the meantime let me know how you have handled this issue with the game, have you tried playing it with this rule change?

 

Hot List Q1 2016

hot list

So continuing my hot list posts I make predictions on the games I think are going to be hot that quarter of the year.

My first prediction is more wishful thinking than knowing it will hit the stores this quarter. All I know is that Games Workshop have said they are bringing back Bloodbowl in 2016. I have fond memories of playing this game while I was studying down in Brighton, and my friend Chris painting one or two of the metal figures for the game. Inparticular he did an amazing job on one of the Minotaur players.

The next big Eric Lang game hits in March to the Kickstarter backers in March if all things go to schedule. I went all in on this game! So I'm expecting a massive box of cool stuff arriving.

I know the T.I.M.E. Stories expansion A Prophecy of Dragons hits the shelves of stores this week. But still I think for fans of the game this is going to be a must buy.

Finally FFG should be releasing a new Star Wars miniatures game (they don't have the licence for boardgames based on the IP) this quarter. What we can guarantee is that it will have the usual high quality production values that FFG are renown for. Will it be a good game or great game, we won't know until we great our hands on it. But it will sell well for sure.

What games do you think will be hot this quarter?

 

Audible Jan 2016

audible

Thought I'd start adding the irregular posts about my audible purchases to the blog as well. Give a little bit of diversity to my gaming posts from a time to time.

I have two audible accounts one in the UK and one in the US of A. Why? Well we all know how publishers in whatever media like to “control” what we have access to, and how much we should be over charged because we live in a region they want to exploit to finance cheaper prices for Americans. Oh does that sound bitter? Well when these corporations charge an exchange rate of £1 = $1 it's the only conclusion you can come too.

Well because of that control freak instinct of those corporations I have been forced to get a second account offshore so that I can access one or two audio books they deem can't be heard here in the UK.

So here is the list of audio books that have been added to my audio book of shame this month. It's more than usual because I didn't get anything last month so I had six credits to use instead of the usual three.

 

Batter Up!

Fenland Gamers, first look

This afternoon two sad gamers met up at a local perveyor of caffeine products to consume hot beverages and attempt to fathom the sick twisted American mind behind baseball by playing Bottom of the 9th for the first time.

Being an Englishman, I've never played baseball. I have watched one or two baseball movies over the years, and even played the odd baseball game back in the mid eighties on the Commodore 64 (Hardball and Imagine softwares baseball game). So I'm familiar with some of the baseball lingo.
First up Dice Hate Me have done a fabulous job theming the game components, giving the whole package a wonderful retro baseball feel. Player cards for batters and pitchers are styled like old baseball cards. The large pitch tokens look like baseballs, as are the fatigue tokens. The 'at bat' card for recording whether a ball or strike has happened and how many, looks like a stick of gum. The expansion packs that came with game are done out like old baseball card packs.Theme just oozes from everything.
Jonathan and I played three games. Jonathan was pitching for the games while I was batting. The first game was a bit ropey, getting to grip with the steps involved with the game play.

“I'm thinking of a number, can you guess it?”

The first step is called the stare down, which does a good job of simulating that part of the game where the pitcher is deciding what sort of ball he is going to throw, while the batter is also trying to work out what to expect. This is a psi game like mechanic, ok yes that is me relating it to Netrunner psi games. Both players are performing a mentalist act. During this phase there is some information on the board that the batter can use to try and second guess the type of throw the pitcher will be throwing. Get it totally right and the pitcher is denied any sort of advantage on their throw, while the batter gets to access abilities to help make hitting the ball easier. Get it wrong and the pitcher has the advantage and hitting the ball gets harder. Get some of the guess right and both pitcher and batter each get an ability switched on.
I'm not going to through all the game play stages. There are videos that do that online. I'm just going to pick out bits I like or think need improving.
During the swing phase where depending on the results of the pitch phase you work out whether the pitch was a ball, strike or hit, we found it easier to reference the chart in the rule book (below)…
Than use the handy dandy reference card that is out on the table (below).
What do you think? I'm going to make my own baseball card sized reference table using the table above from the rule book, and the following information on when you roll a natural six as the batter.
If my fading memory from our games hasn't faded too much since the events that inspired this post happened, then Jonathan and I had maybe four or five times when we actually had to do the roll the dice to be the first to get a five or six to determine if the batter makes first base, or if the fielding team gets him out.
Out of those dice rushes I won one. The other times Jonathan rolled a six or five straight away, getting my batter out straight away.

The Rule Book

The rule book has had a few complaints about it, especially that it is not very accessible to those who don't know baseball (although I believe even then some have complained about it). It is jargon laden. Personally I didn't find the rule book as bad as I was expecting. It would have been better if it had a glossary of terms, I had no idea what a double was. Before Jonathan arrived I had to quickly do a Google search to find out. I shouldn't have to be doing this.
I also found apart from the opening paragraph, there is no explicate objectives, win condition explained in the rule book.
I seem to remember Jonathan talking about these points many moons ago now, and saying that the rule book was being rewritten to take on board the critisms say made.

Despite the points above, and I didn't win one game, I still enjoyed this one or two player game. It captures baseball as far as I understand it really well. The use of its mechanics really does give a feel of playing baseball. Or for this Limey how I think it would be based on the films and video games I have played. Could this be rethemed for the rest of the world as a cricket game? Mechanics wise I don't think much would have to be changed. But then I think cricket is about as exciting as watching paint dry or grass grow. Which I believe may or may not be the opinion some Americans have of baseball.

After Jonathan had beat me good and proper, we sat and chatted for a little bit discussing gaming stuff.

Don't forget folks if you are local the Fenland Gamers have their monthly meet this Wednesday. Contact us through the Facebook page if you want to come along to get the details.

 

Start of 2016 New Stuff

new arrivals

Yes Christmas has just wrapped up, the new year has bearly had time for the cord to be cut from the old, and stuff has started to arrive.

I am not a Netrunner Winter 2015 Champion, I've not had to hack my way to the top. However I did have some money burning a hole in my pocket once I saw this Day Job play mat that was a prize for oh maybe playing Netrunner! I found some-one selling it for a reasonable price, so I parted with the correct number of credits to purchase it. It's a gorgeous design, and I've since found out you can also get prints of the art work. Which I might get for work.

As an earlier post this week showed I was so impressed by Bomb Squad Academy that I bought a copy, that arrived at the start of the week.

Also I got a Kickstarter copy of Bottom of the 9th, a one or two player game based on that American game Baseball.

Finally for this week two Ultra-Pro Pro Tower deck boxes arrived. These are so hard to find in the UK, why I'm not sure. I got these from the US.

As you can see the Pro Tower is a big deck box. I've put it next to a Ultra-Pro Satin Tower and an Ultimate Guard Flip 'n' Tray (middle grey one) below.

The photo below shows the three deck boxes open. They all have a compartment for dice/counters. My least favourite is the Satin Tower. I like the Flip 'n' Tray, it's design is so much better than the Satin Tower.

The Pro Tower now I have it in the flesh does not disappoint. Bigger than I expected, but hey this would make a good box for taking on holiday stuffed with small box games.

Q

So that's the new stuff this week, most of it ordered just before Christmas, so not bad getting here so soon considering how much more the postal service gets used over the holidays. Still a couple of things to arrive from the US, one an expansion, the other some promos bits. I thought the expansion might have arrived today, considering the deck box arrived yesterday, but the postal system is a law unto itself.

 

Hitting the stores next week

news

Just been checking next weeks releases for the UK, and here is what has caught my eye.

OMG the second expansion for T.I.M.E. Stories hit the stores in the UK next week! I've not had a chance to get the game to the table, let alone play the second expansion the Marcy Case. But here we are the second week of the new year being treated to the second expansion A Prophecy of Dragons. Which I believe is a take on the whole D&D fantasy genre.

Also coming out (again so not sure if this is a restock, or reprinting) is Room 25 Season 2. A stand alone follow up to Room 25. You don't need the first game to get this!

Finally of note for me is Fuse. Which is a real time cooperative dice game according to the blurb.

 

Asmodee Assimulate More of the Games Industry!

news
With my very very basic photoshop skills I thought I'd create a couple of images that might capture how some people out in the interweb feel about the news that broke today of Asmodee acquiring the rights to the English version of Catan.
If you know me on Twitter/Instagram/Facebook you will have already seen these. But for those that don't here is the results of my poor photoshop skills and even poorer attempts at satire.
Asmodee get the rights to the English version of Catan. The Asmodee Cube continues to assimulate all before it.
Behind the scenes. The Asmodee rep caught negotiating with Mayfair games for the rights to the English version of Catan.

Senior moments

Fenland Gamers, first look, game night, tabletop

Last night the worker placement fan club wing of the Fenland Gamers met up to make wine by playing Jonathan's Christmas present from his son Viticulture.

On my way to the meet I realised I had forgotten my 6S, which meant I was going to have to ask Jonathan for copies of any photos from the evening for the post. Seconds after I arrived, Jonathan pulled up in his car. He had just nipped home because he had forgotten his phone also!

We were playing the essential edition of the game, which is basically the second edition of the game plus some hand picked modules by the game designer Uwe Rosenberg from the Tuscany expansion.

The essential edition of the game is like the special edition Star Wars, the second edition and Tuscany expansions will not be reprinted, the essential edition is it, the only one you will be able to get.

While setting up the game it became apparent very fast that Jonathan had forgotten the games money. Which meant you guessed it, Jonathan popping home to get the games currency. Luckily the secret Bat Cave that Jonathan lives in was nearby.

The delay while Jonathan fetched the moolah was worth it. Before Christmas Jonathan had a slight inclination that he'd be getting Viticulture so he hunted down the metal coin pack for the game. I can tell you this bit of pimping the components of the game was well worth it. The coins are gorgeous. I can't believe that they won't be making these any more, that's a mad decision. The coins look fantastic, have a lovely feel to them.

Above photos curtesy of Jonathan

Playing the game was a delight, I really enjoyed playing it. There are some very nice mechanics in the game.

First off is the Waking mechanic, where you decide the order of play that round. If you really want to go first and grab a particular place on the board, you can grab that (if it hasn't been chosen already), but you get no bonus. Otherwise you may decide it's more important to gain one of the bonuses, the further back in the turn order you go the more powerful the bonus. These bonuses range from drawing cards, getting money, or victory points to having an extra temporary worker to place.

I like this mechanic for deciding turn order, it's similar to Five Tribes. Except in Five Tribes you are deciding how much you are prepared to pay to go first.

Similar to the Manhattan Project and Coal Baron where by taking an action first you influence the cost of that action for the next player that turn. Which enables you to have a negative influence on the other players. In Viticulture this is reversed. Meaning the second player to take the action gets a positive bonus, often repeating that action again, for instance instead of playing one visitor card they can play two.

Breaking each round into seasons, and having actions only available in a particular season is a nice touch, and helps get the theme over really well.

Speaking of theme, I think this game oozes theme. The whole vineyard, making wine, comes across really strongly.

I love how victory points are not just something you are striving to gain, but also a resource you can spend to gain an advantage.

I took an early lead in the victory points, which I was able to maintain for most of the game, even when I was manipulating the victory points to get some advantage on the board. Most of my victory points came by lots of little actions and bonuses, Mat and Jonathan got most of their points from completing orders. I think I only completed two contracts, for six or seven victory points in total.

Yes the completed contracts give you more victory points, and recurring money. But the chipping away tactic I used in this game seemed just as effective. I did reach the twenty victory points first, triggering the end game.

That end game or final turn was very tense. Mat and Jonathan were only a couple of points behind me at this point. A completed contract or two, which they looked like they could do, would push them to victory. I needed to disrupt their plans, and try and complete a contract.

I knew my only contract was not something I could complete. I didn't have the resources.

During the Summer phase I played a card that allowed me to discard a couple of cards and draw one of each type I had discarded. It was risky, I needed to top deck a good card to help me. It paid off.

During the final Winter phase I had to try and stop them completing contracts. Mat completed one, taking him two points ahead of me and into the lead. Jonathan took the draw contract action, phew that helped me ALOT. I followed that action, but I got the bonus of drawing two contracts, hoping to get one I could complete. Phew the cards were smiling on me tonight. I had a contract I could complete for two victory points. I had top decked again.

However by completing his contract first, Mat had given me the win! Being second to do the complete contract action meant I not only got the two victory points for completing my contract and drawing level with Mat on points, I also got an extra victory point giving me the win!

As I previously said, this last round was very tense. It was so close, any of us could have won. Jonathan had been frustrated in that last round unable to complete a contract. Mat nearly won. But Lady Luck and the cards smiled on me.

This was an awesome game, it will definitely go on the wishlist.

Afterwards Mat showed us his new game Trickerion – Legends of Illusion. We didn't play it, that will be for another night. But this worker placement game about being magicians and performing magic looked amazing. It was so thematic, and had a look and feel that really invoked the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the magic acts of that age like Houdini, and the theatres of the time.

The light brown faded colour scheme really made the look of the rules and player aids fit in and feel part of the whole period it was set in.

So the game looks beautiful and thematic, I can't wait to play it.

Whilst looking at Trickerion Jonathan confessed with out any prompting or arm twisting, that he had a chequered past as a magician! So we have said when we play the game Jonathan has to set the mood of the evening by performing some magic!!!

We also after using my discussion piece I had taken along (the Pandemic Legacy rule book) come up with a plan for getting the game to the table.

This was a really awesome evening of gaming, I had a great time (and not just because I won for once). Thanks guys for a great evening.

Some Boardgame Breakfast Thoughts

expansions, news

In this post I'm picking out some bits from the latest Dice Tower output that has interested me.

While watching this weeks Boardgame Breakfast in the news section of the show it was mentioned that Days of Wonder had released a solo variant for the game.

I own the game. I've played it once since getting it. I like the game despite the temper tantrum by one of the other players (that was a first). I'm hoping to get the game to the table with the Fenland Gamers. But in the meantime this new solo mode should help me reach that Five Tribes itch.

While you are over at the Days of Wonder page for Five Tribes look at the other goodies they have there for the game. Some nice little surprises there, I should of visited their site earlier.

Get your Five Tribes goodies HERE

The Dice Tower also reported that AEG have announced the first expansion for Dice City. Despite Jonathan handing me my butt in this game, I still enjoyed playing this game. So I'm looking forward to this expansion coming out.

In the Tom Thinks section this week, Tom makes his annual ten predictions for the coming year in the games industry. One of those was about Magic the Gathering Arena of the Planeswalker. Tom's prediction was that this game would disappear because of lack of backing for the game by Hasbro. I would and this is with a heavy heart have to agree with Tom. Which is a shame, because this game with its great price, potential for organise play, could be huge. The crime is the lack of support from Hasbro.

This game needs expansions, it needs to allow the team/squad building. But that only comes when you have a pool of spells etc to choose from. That pool comes from expansions. There also needs to be more terrain pieces made available, maybe a specific terrain expansion. The pieces you get with the base game is nothing but stingy. I know why they did this to keep the price down. I also know yes you can buy old Heroscape terrain to use with the game. But this needs Hasbro to man up, and make some available with the Magic name. It sends a powerful message to the consumer.

Hopefully Hasbro are looking at the FFG playbook for games like Imperial Assault (a far more expensive competitor). Since that came out a year ago, we have seen two big expansions, and four waves of “character” expansions. There has been a World Campionships, three or four organised play kits for stores. Why are we not seeing this from Hasbro? They have the infrastructure already for the organised play side with Magic the Gathering.

Hasbro are certainly frustrating.

Finally yesterday the annual Dice Tower Kickstarter kicked off. It has already reached its funding target in the first twenty four hours. There are some nice promo sets as backer rewards. Each promo set is made up of promos for a number of separate games. There is at least one promo in each of the promo sets available that I'd like. But because of the way the rewards are structured to get all the promo sets it would cost me about $250. Which yes the main point of the Kickstarter is to help fund the channel, and not about the rewards. However if I went with that tier of support I'd be left with a lot of unwanted promos. Yes I could eBay the stuff but that's effort! Or I could hope the promos I want form the sets are available to buy separately later on. Or possible I could try trading the promos I don't want for ones I do.

Luckily for me the promo set with the most promos I'd use is set A. That's the $60 tier. It would be nice to be able to select which set you wanted at this tier, or any of the tiers between this and the “All of them” tier.

My ideal would be to be able to select the promos I want to make up my set, but that is a LOT of extra effort for the Dice Tower team.

Anyway apart from that little moan, the Dice Tower is a great channel, putting out a lot of free content over the year for gamers. You can show your support for the Dice Tower HERE.