All posts by Darren

Journeys

Fenland Gamers, memoir 44

So it would appear a previous post of mine started something when I mentioned that my dad was in 2 Para and the Arnham scenario we played was on the regiments battle honours. Somehow it started Gavin and Jonathan on a journey to find out about their grandfathers during World War Two. I'm not sure how far Gavin is on his journey, however Jonathan made some amazing progress. Which brings us to this post.

Last night saw Jonathan and I meet up to play a special Memoir '44 scenario. A custom scenario specially created for him to commemorate the memory of his grandfather.

The Queen's Westminters at Silvode, March 30, 1945 – Allies

We started the evening with myself playing the Allies and Jonathan taking on the part of the Axis forces. An initial analysis of the board, it was obvious that my forces were strong on both flanks against the Axis forces while the Axis forces were stronger in the centre. Moving up the flanks, trying to stay out of range of the artillery would have to be my strategy (cards and dice rolls allowing).

Luckily the cards and dice allowed me to execute this plan. Through out the battle Jonathan had the victory point advantage, doing better with his dice rolls. However it remained pretty close through out the game.

Jonathan's tactics did surprise me a little because he stayed out taking on my forces more than I would have. But as always sometimes in Memoir the cards don't go your way, and maybe this tactic was forced on him.

If my dice rolls had been better I think some of the latter exchanges between our forces would have resulted in a bit more comfortable winning margin. How bad where my rolls? Take this example below. I played the “Their Finest Hour” command card, I need to roll my units symbols or a Star symbol to be able to move my units. I got one dice to roll for each command card in my hand. Which meant on this occasion I rolled six dice. So an infantry, tank or star symbol is all I needed to roll. Six dice. I should have rolled at least one of those symbols. But no I roll six, yes SIX hand grenade symbols. Which meant I could do nothing. Jonathan couldn't believe this roll, and neither could I. It had to be photographed.

However I did eventually manage to steal the win. Although it could very easily have been an Axis victory. As the photos below show the Axis forces were left with a single artillery unit, while I managed to capture Varsseveld.

After the win it was time for a little photo session and remembering the fallen. Below Jonathan pays his respects to his grandfather and those that gave the ultimate sacrifice at the battle.

The Queen's Westminters at Silvode, March 30, 1945 – Axis

Round two. My turn to play the Axis powers. My tactics for this game were to try and utilise my strength in the middle against the Allies, and make use of the strong defensive positions my troops had, and let the Allies come onto my forces, hopefully picking up heavy casualties.

My opening hand wasn't brilliant, but I could work with it. I even utilised playing bad cards to just get rid of them from my hand, and in hope of drawing something better.

My forces retreated to form a defensive pocket, waiting for the Allie forces to break upon them like waves on a beach.

The Allies won the day again. My hand of command cards at the end where all left flank command cards. Useless to me.

This was a fun scenario to play, I think with the right card draw and rolls my tactics would have worked better and possibly won for the Axis powers.

This scenario was made more poignant with the personal connection it had to Jonathan and his family. We really didn't mind losing as the Axis forces (this time).

Jacques 'jdrommel' David on the Memoir '44 forums did a really great job designing this scenario. He dedicated it to Jonathan's grandfather Private Kenneth W. Warren of the 12th KRRC, who was killed in this battle on the 30th March 1945, “and to all soldiers who have lost their lives during these forgotten battles at the end of the Second World War.” And I have to say I totally agree with this dedication.

You can read Jonathan's blog post and personal journey here.

The evenings gaming was bought to a close with me teaching Jonathan how to play Tiny Epic Galaxies. This was the first game I played since it arrived that I won! Jonathan really was impressed by the production quality of the game, and the game itself. I wouldn't be surprised to see it end up in his collection soon.

Another great evening of gaming. I felt honoured that Jonathan shared this scenario with me, and gave me the opportunity to play it with him. Thank you Jonathan, it was an honour to be able to have an opportunity to pay my respects this way to your grandfather and the other fallen.

 

This weeks arrivals 16Oct15

lego minifigs, new arrivals

I think I must have been one of the last to have their Thunderbirds game posted out to them, because it only turned up yesterday.

With Pandemic Legacy Season 1 hitting the shops and Thunderbirds coming out this has been a busy month for game designer Matt Leacock. Although I think somehow Pandemic Legacy is going to get all the limelight.

Will this be a sleeper hit for Matt? Very possibly, but I need to play this first. Which means getting it to the table with the Fenland Gamers at some point (soon hopefully). Plus hopefully in time for Christmas gaming the expansions should be sent out.

It can't have been missed that Lego Dimensions launched recently for home consoles. Lego Dimensions is the Lego version of Disney Infinity and Spyro Skylanders.

Now I've not got into the whole Skylanders and Infinity thing on the consoles. I liked the idea but the whole price thing of the figures kind of put me off.

And it's for that reason that I'm not going to be jumping on the Dimensions band wagon. HOWEVER! That hasn't stopped me from buying one of the Level packs for the game. I had to buy the Portal 2 level pack. I loved the Portal games and I wanted the figures. Sadly the only way to get them is to buy this Level pack.

The only draw back is that to make the sentry and companion cube you need to have the game for the inbuilt instructions. Luckily YouTube comes to the rescue in that front.

But still the Lego looks good.

Still in the postal system is my King of New York tee, One Night Revolution and the Coup G54 games, and a mystery package from the BGG store. Plus at some point towards the end of the month my pre-orders should be arriving (Pandemic Legacy is one of them).

 

Barbarians Are Dicks

Fenland Gamers

Last night saw another mid week meet up of the Fenland Gamers. The group is growing with six of us attending this meet up. Which meant that we split up into two groups of three to play games. I'm looking forward to the time when we can reminisce about the humble beginnings of the group. Jonathan and Matt deserve a big pat on the back for starting this group up.

While the other group adjourned to another table to play some games, myself, Gavin and Debbie set up to play Imperial Settlers.

Imperial Settlers

Gavin had been wanting to try Imperial Settlers, I had been wanting to play a full give ever since the aborted short game with Nath that he didn't enjoy. The game had been sitting on my game shelf ever since mocking me.

We chose our factions, Gavin took the Romans, Debbie the Egyptians while I took the Barbarians. Which meant no one had to play the Japanese who apparently are a little different/more difficult to play as a beginner faction.

We did our initial card draw, and then started going through the phases of the first round. Resource wise the Barbarians compared to the others were resource poor. Their main resource being people! Just to be able to building buildings I was having to trade people for wood.

Debbie and Gavin were getting resources quicker than I was. At the end of the first round they definitely had the beginnings of their engines in place.
But I hit pay dirt with two cards. I got a resource card that I could use twice in a round that allowed me to get wood cheaper. The two uses was all I needed to get a resource out that would then allow me to get two wood for one person. This allowed me to be able to get the resources I need quickly to start building my kingdom.
In the third round I got lucky and drew some awesome faction cards. Well awesome for me, super annoying for the others. I was able to get a victory point bonus when I razed something. Another resource allowed me to get two raze tokens for one person. One card allowed me to get the resources or victory points when I razed an opponents building. This would give me in combination with the other card five victory points every time I razed an opponents building! Then another card allowed me to get rid of opponents Deals and get victory points!
The thing is it seemed to me and probably the others too, that the Barbarians were too over powered. I'd have to play a game with them in again sometime, but with someone else playing them instead. It could be I just was getting better card draw than the others and got an efficient scoring engine going.
But the Barbarian faction cards are super thematic, and basically force you as the Barbarian player to go be a dick to the other players. And yes there was some inner turmoil about being so aggressive in a first game for us all. But I managed to beat that conscience back into its box, so that the Barbarian side of me could continue commanding its hordes to go out and conquer.
My last actions in the final round, round five where basically me spending raze tokens to raze the buildings of Debbie's and Gavin's little empires. So reducing their score, while pushing mine up even further. Remember five victory points each time I did it.
Unsurprisingly my Barbarian horde conquered all before them, reducing the surrounding civilisations to ruins, giving me a convincing victory.
Below Jonathan's photo of my Barbarian Horde.

While my Barbarian horde was off doing dickish things to all those before them. Jonathan, Katie and Jo were playing Brew Crafters travel card game (which I have and haven't got round to playing – so I'm up for playing this sometime) and Ivor the Engine the game. Yes a game based on the old childhood favourite, which apparently also has sheep it. I'm curious to give this a play sometime, despite I think when I was young being a bigger Noggin the Nog fan (although looking on bgg there is also a boardgame of this too, which is classified as a roll and move game)

Camel Cup

Our last game of the evening was Camel Cup. Which allowed all six of us to sit round the table and play.

Visually this game looks amazing. The pyramid dice tower in the middle just looks so impressive. Having to use it by tipping the pyramid upside down to get a single dice out does seem a bit gimmicky. But hey what a gimmick.

My tactic if you can call it that was not to bet on the camels during the race, but to try and cut that opportunity down for the others by rolling dice as often as possible to cut down on the opportunities of the others to gamble and earn money that way. Early on I bet that blue would win the race, and yellow would come last.

Then it was doing my best to try and facilitate that outcome. Sadly yellow made a surprise sprint to the front of the pack. However Katie rolled a blue dice that put blue in front. I could of done a loud “yes” at this point. Next round blue crossed the finish line first.

I had slowly been accumulating coins by rolling the dice, while the others won and lost by betting. Having called the winner I got a nice bonus, but was it enough?

Gavin won this game, but only just. He beat me by one coin. one coin!

Another great evening of gaming with the Fenland Gamers.

 

Bases and Battleships

star realms

Checked my app updates on my iPad just now, and this was there waiting for me.

Yep more ships and bases to play with in the app version of the game. £1.49 for this expansion is a bargain, especially when you consider that gives you the expansion across all versions of the game. So instantly I have it on my Mac, I have it on Windows (if I so wish to play it on the dirty side of my Mac) and if I have a a complete breakdown in taste an Android device (heaven knows why you would ever want one).

Slowly the app is catching up with the physical game. Just wait until they add events and heroes.

 

Finally In The Shops

Uncategorized

Yep the big box art above gives the game away, but I'll spell it out anyway. Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn is out this week in your FLGS and online retailers. You won't be getting the promo Phoenixborn that came with the game when you pre-order/buy it from Plaid Hat Games, but I'm sure Plaid Hat will do as they did with the Dead Of Winter promo characters and make it available on their website soon.

Don't forget this will have expansions adding more cards/dice. But Plaid Hat are not following the Magic collectable model, but the FFG LCG model. However I believe Plaid Hat are not going to be doing such a punishing release schedule for these expansions.

Yes I have an alteria motive, I want more people to play with, especially locally (mind you I want that with Netrunner too). But this is a great game, looks AMAZING. Definitely a must buy.

The other new release I'm pointing out this week is Tiny Epic Galaxies. This is an awesome little game, I like playing this game. I've played this game with both none gamers, and none hard core gamers and they really enjoyed playing the game.

My Kickstarter copy came with a little expansion, but the good news is you are also able to purchase the expansion from the BGG Store. Even though the BGG Store is American, the postage they charge is minimal, and usually takes about two weeks to arrive.

Tiny Epic Galaxies packs a lot of game in such a small box. A definite addition to any game collection.

 

Some cool playmats on Inked Playmats

Uncategorized

Just put up on Inked Playmats are some amazing new playmats by an amazingly talented artist Natascha Roosli also known as Kyena online.

As you can see from Tascha's photos from Instagram that I've “borrowed” for this post, she has an amazing talent.

Tascha I believe has done some work for FFG in the past too. Sadly nothing for Android:Netrunner. But I can hope that maybe in the future that will happen.

You can find Tascha's playmats HERE

Finally I have met Tascha. It was about three years ago at Eurogamer in the indie section. I was helping a friend promote his game Fist of Awesome that was just being released, by dressing up as a bear and having photos taken with people pretending to beat me up.

Tascha was promoting a puzzle game if I remember correctly, which did look amazing. However we did have our photo taken, but Tascha felt guilty hitting a bear so the below photo was taken instead.

Naturally since that photo was taken I have had a shave and hair cut.

I have to say that was a great weekend at the show. The indie developers were so amazing, really friendly, and supportive of each other. I love the indie section at shows, where else can you meet, chat and discuss games with the actual designer/developer?

Anyway go over and buy an awesome playmat, I will be on payday.

 

Battle of Abbeville Part Two

memoir 44

Tonight saw the return leg of the Breakthrough scenario that Jonathan and I started a couple of weeks back or so. Our setup time this time around was far quicker than previously because of our foresight of having all the terrain tiles for the scenario together.

This time I was going to be the Allies. Could I pull off the victory to get the clean sweep? I certain had an idea of the tactics I wanted to employ as the Allies, but would I get the command cards to allow me to put my plans into action?

We drew our starting hands…

Battle of Abbeville (Breakthough map and scenario) – Allies

My plan was simple I was going to rush the Axis forces trying to knock them out before they got a chance to retreat back to the bridges and attempt to lure me into range of the artillery. Oh because that's what I did as the Axis forces. I also wanted to make sure I moved my forces (especially in the centre) all together in a block, and not just move the odd unit that would be picked off easily. I wanted to attack in numbers.

My opening hand allowed me to play a pincer movement on both flanks. A perfect first card to play I thought.

After that I attacked a unit close to my forces in the centre, before switching and concentrating my attack on the right flank. I wanted to mop up the forces there, and take out the artillery unit. That had potential to do some damage.

Once I had control of the right flank I used my remaining command cards for that side to move my forces into the centre and join my main attack there. A couple of back to back all unit cards allowed me to move in force down the centre.

Jonathan didn't retreat as fast as I had. He seemed to be trying to hold a line and engage my forces. Later Jonathan admitted he just wasn't getting the cards to allow him to move in the centre.

Over all this was a pretty close game. I'd score a couple of victory points, and then Jonathan would reply scoring two in reply.

In the end it could easily have swung Jonathan's way for a victory. Especially if my dice rolls had been poorer. But in the end I scored the final victory point I needed for the win.

After clearing up Jonathan and I played Hive. As regular readers will know I've had the game for a little while but just not got round to playing it. Luckily Jonathan had played Hive before. Hive is one of those games that is quick to learn but a life time to master.

I think on the win/loss front it was pretty even between the two of us. I enjoyed playing Hive, it's a nice quick game. Ideal as a filler for two.

Thanks Jonathan for another great evening of Memoir '44. We now need to start planning our next scenario to play.

 

Nath’s Birthday Weekend – Sunday

love letter, tabletop
Our Sunday mini gaming session kicked off once Nath had surfaced and showered with Tides of Time.
This was the first time for both Nath and I playing this card drafting game. Compared with other card games the cards in Tides of Time are enormous. However they are beautiful looking, as is the whole game. Ok there is no art inside the lid of the box, but there is a lovely piece of art is the base of the box.
Nath and I very quickly picked up the simple rules. What marks Tides of Time out from other drafting games is that at the end of each of the first two rounds each player chooses one card to remove from the game and one card to keep in front of them.
Naturally Nath enjoyed this game. I think comprehensively beating me (take a look at the score pad that comes with the game in the above photo) helped a lot towards that.
We were just setting up Tiny Epic Galaxies when Nath's girlfriend came to the table, so I invited her to join us in playing the game.

After a quick explanation of the rules and talking them both through a couple of turns, Nath and his girlfriend had the game down. This is the second time I've played the game, and I have to say I'm loving it. There was some nice tit for tat interactions using planet abilities to foil the plans of each other.

Once again Nath walked away with a convincing victory. Nath and his girlfriend both liked the game. One comment made by her was it was “complicated but fun”. Which is interesting because she is a none hobby gamer, whose previous experience of games are the mainstream offerings. So between Nath teaching his girlfriend Star Realms yesterday, and now going straight into Tiny Epic Galaxies, I think she is experiencing a new view of what board games are.

We finished the mini gaming session with me introducing Batman Love Letter to Nath and his girlfriend. This was a blast with me knocking Nath out first card by playing a Batman and guessing his card on a turn one. His girlfriend forgetting which card I had after just exchanging cards with me. Or me forgetting I had played Harley Quinn a couple of turns earlier when guessing Nath's card and naming her!

However Nath funny enough didn't enjoy this game as much because his winning streak came to an end, with his girlfriend winning the game.

I left Nath this copy of Batman Love Letter so that they can play it also while I'm not there.

This was a fun little gaming session with Nath and his girlfriend. It was a pleasure meeting Nath's girlfriend for the first time. She's also a Marvel Geek! Now maybe Nath will have to watch the excellent Daredevil on Netflix. She did say she was going to force him to.

 

Nath’s Birthday Weekend – Saturday

star realms

Ok Nath's birthday isn't until Tuesday but seeing as I'm visiting this weekend, it's ok if he has his birthday present early I think.

So Nath now has his own copy of Star Realms, with the Gambit expansion, Crisis Expansions, the storage box with the official card sleeves and the Mercenery Garrison promo. As I type this bit of the post Nath is busy sleeving his cards, father like son ^__^

I wasn't able to get a playmat for the game so I've let Nath have mine. I still don't know why it's so hard to get an official mat here in the UK without having to import it at an inflated price. I also put in the package six green d10 dice for tracking authority. It's far easier using dice than the supplied authority cards. I also like to describe the green dice as authority green.

After Nath had cleaned up his room (funny how having his girlfriend come round inspired him into doing house work!) I setup Tiny Epic Galaxy and went through the rules, and a couple of turns with him. The little taster was enough to get Nath interested. But for now it was pack it away so he could go pick up his girlfriend from the train station.

With introductions done, Nath introduced his girlfriend to Star Realms. With a little help in explaining the game to her, and helping with the first couple of turns I left them to play their first game together.

I think it is great that Nath likes the game so much that he wanted it for his birthday, and also to play it with his girlfriend.

It will be interesting to see if she enjoys the game too.

 

Westeros Bound

game of thrones, new arrivals

Taking its place as my fourth command and colours based game in my collection is the just arrived today Battles of Westeros. This is another great purchase from the UK Trading and Selling Facebook group. Funny enough it could mean from the same guy I bought Battlelore from!

This is as the title of the game suggests a Battlelore game themed around the A Game of Thrones books. Now I know I haven't played my copy of Battle Cry or Battlelore, but I have Memoir '44, and I love the Command and Colours system.

I want to play them all. I'm lucky that Jonathan is a Memoir fan. I don't think it will take much persuasion to get Jonathan to play the others with me too.

The quandary I have is do I take Battles of Westeros with me to play with Nath at the weekend? I mean I haven't included Ashes this time. I'm trying Nath out with the deck construction mechanic by taking Epic before I try him with Ashes or Android:Netrunner. Plus I know if Thunderbirds does arrive I know I won't be able to resist taking that.

I know Nath is a Game of Thrones fan, he really enjoys the tv series (he hasn't read the books). So the theme will really appeal to him.

There are other games out there that use the Command and Colours system, but the only one I'm interested in adding to my collection is The Great War, if I remember the name correctly. Which is based around the First World War.

I still want the A Game of Thrones boardgame but for a gaming fix to take me back to the A Game of Thrones universe between series on tv this will I hope be far easier to get to the table.