Also the Santa Darth Maul arrived today. This is from an earlier Lego Star Wars advent calendar.
Wow there was some great entries. All of them so much better than I could come up with.
Sadly there could only be one winner of the game Bang the Dice Game. And the winner is…
Ronald Pablico
Who needs a golden goose when you have a dog that poops board games?!
Well done Ronald, I'll be contacting you for your address to send your prize to.
Once again a big big thank you to everyone that entered, the entries really were amazing.
Yep today I can start opening the Star Wars Lego Advent Calandar. After keeping it safe round my Nans for a few weeks now (I would have opened them all by now if I hadn't) it is now TIME!
These are really nice, I also like their money counters for the game. I'll get some at some point, oh along with the extra click tokens.
The invoice came in a really nice card, and had a Team Covenent sticker inside too. Back of the invoice had really nice gushing text on it thanking for buying etc etc. This was a real great way to present the invoice, it is very stylish, and clever. A very very nice touch.
While getting some card protectors to protect my restocked Love Letter Batman (I'd given my two copies away, and it is my favourite version), a set of Magic Duel Decks and three booster packs fell into my bag! The owner of the FLGS also kindly gave me a “trial” Magic the Gathering pack as well. These “trial” packs are two thirty card decks given to people thinking of trying the game.
This Christmas is looking like a LCG/CCG holiday. With the Magic stuff today, Epic, Android Netrunner, and Ashes I have plenty of options to play with Nath.
Whilst at the FLGS ok I'm going to name it, it's The Hobbit Hole in Chatteris, the owner said he is looking to start organising Netrunner stuff starting in January. Customers (other than me) had been in asking about the game.
The other bit of gossip I got was that apparently the second D&D Dicemasters set is meant to be hitting stores tomorrow!!!
If this is true, it's madness. The Amazing Spider-Man set only hit about three weeks ago.
I love playing Dicemasters, but I'm glad I jumped off the wagon. Wizkids have a crazy release schedule, that is not only expensive, but doesn't give you much time to play with the sets before another hits.
At least with Netrunner and Magic the release schedules are much less punishing. Giving you time to play and explore the new goodness.
Mind you considering the Dicemasters Teenage Ninja Turtles set will be a self contained set, I may be tempted to part with some cash for it.
Today is the last day to enter the caption competition to win a copy of Bang the Dice Game.
Yesterday saw three Fenland Gamers meet up for an afternoon of rolling dice, pushing tokens around, plotting and general cardboard shenanigans.
Amazon had let me down again. Colt Express was meant to have arrived Friday, but it didn't. So after chatting with their support I had an extra month added to my Prime membership as a “gesture of good will” from them for the inconvience, and an assurance the game would be delivered by midday on Saturday so it could be played that afternoon. Guess what? It never showed up. When I contacted support again, was told it was still at the couriers local distribution centre. I wasn't happy. In a fit of rage, I performed the act known as cutting my nose off despite my face, and asked to cancel the order and get a refund, saying I would get it elsewhere.
After getting hot beverages organised, our afternoon of gaming started with the three of us learning the new arrival I had this week Dice City.
So a brief read through of the rules, then we started play. Our first couple of turns saw us fumbling around like new born foals finding their legs. Through out the game questions would crop up for various situations, and the rule book would have to be consulted.
Our second game of the afternoon was Splendor. Having had the custom playmat made for the game did aid setting up. I didn't have to remember where everything went for starters.
I like Splendor, especially the tokens for the gems. The fact they are poker chips with the relevant image of a gem on is nice. But I just like the tactile feel of these chips. It's hard not to play with them when they are in front of you waiting to be spent.
Although Jonathan managed to attract the first patron, and also take the early lead with a couple of one point cards. I quickly caught up, and pulled ahead, before attracting two patrons. Jonathan did pull back, but by then it was too late I scored the fifteen points to get the win.
Our final game of the session was Istanbul. The tile setup used was the short paths one, with no expansions or promos used. We went this route because this was the first time Jonathan's dad had played the game, and didn't want to over complicate things.
Once again Jonathan won. That's all three games of this I've played so far and he has won all of them. I came second in this game due to the tie breaker rules. Jonathan's dad and I both had three gems, but I had more money than him.
After the game, Jonathan shared his winning tactic for the short paths set up. Which basically meant grabbing the tile power up that allowed him to reroll a die, or change it to the number four. Then visiting the tea house to get money and the gemstone store to buy the gems. And alternating between the two. I must find a way to disrupt this tactic if we play this set up again. Which while writing this I think I have.
A great afternoon gaming, great company.
The English version of two issues of Spielbox arrived this morning. These were back issues that I ordered for particular promos that came with them.
So this is the Kebab Shop promo. It comes on thinner cardboard than the game uses for its tiles. It is suggested on bgg that one solution is to stick it to the German language side of the fountain tile. And I know Jonathan printed out this tile and did that. But there is a bit of me that just can't bring myself to do that. What if I want to play the game in German? Ok I don't speak German, and I don't know anyone who does (that I know of), I've always wanted to learn German (only held back by the fact I'm rubbish at languages, and find speaking them difficult), but who knows I may over come my barriers holding me back, and playing the German version would help with that learning.
As a separate promo from the issue it was given with is the Carcassonne Plague promo. I'm going to need to visit bgg to get the rules for this little promo/expansion.
Over on eBay the playmat for Colt Express is used as bait to separate the gullible from their coins. Yes this is another of those promos that goes for silly money. But it is also another of those promos that you can buy from the original source at its original cost!
My google skills are not some super ninja level, they are those of a mere mortal. So why am I finding these promos at the far more affordable level, while others seemingly aren't?
Any ways I think the game is going to look awesome set out on this playmat.
So I've made up the time machine promo ready to be used.
Now all I need is Amazon to get Colt Express to me in time for this afternoons gaming session. They let me down yesterday by not delivering it.
This evening Jonathan and I met up to play some games. Mat should have been there too, but he had to drop out at the last minute due to illness.
The original plan had been for the three of us to play The Manhattan Project (Mat had really wanted to play this game) and Lords of Waterdeep with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion (Mat and Jonathan were keen to play this).
However with no Mat the plans were in disarray. Well kind of. Jonathan had bought with him Istanbul with the Mocha and Baksheesh expansion, plus the kebab stall tile promo.
We winged our plan of games to play, starting off with The Manhattan Project. For this play through we used the Nations expansion (one and two), used the tile to change the number of bomb attacks down from two to one. This made more sense for a two player game, and the mini bomb placement board for laying out the bomb cards. Oh and naturally the player aid cards were also used.
I really do like the Nations cards, they add a little more theme to the game, give a unique power to each player.
It would be cruel to say that every move we took we said “oh Mat would love this” and we didn't. But Mat would have loved the game.
I managed to ramp up my engine quicker than Jonathan, I had all my workers bought and working for me well before Jonathan. The only real place my system was not very good at generating stuff was generating lots of yellow cake. This meant I had to keep using a main action to get yellow cake, and normally ended up giving Jonathan free yellow cake so I could grab more.
I managed to beat Jonathan to testing a bomb first, which meant I claimed six points for being the first to test a bomb (second in a two player game gets no points) and switched on the higher point total.
Each bomb I made (except the one I was going to test) I loaded onto a bomber. It's a cheap way of getting five points.
I thought this worked really well as a two player game. And I'm not just saying that because I won. Jonathan also enjoyed playing it this way.
Jonathan and I both played in a non aggressive way, I've we didn't attack each other. I think taking that attack slot down to one, would have allowed for a more aggressive game if we had wanted to go down that route. If it had been left at two slots, it would have been just tit for tat on the attacking front. However with just the one slot, it stops that, and the other player has to wait until the slot is free before they can retaliate (if that is what they want to do). It also stops back to back attacks, and being completely destroyed. I'll be interested to hear what others think on this.
But still The Manhattan Project a very very good worker placement game.
Next up Istanbul with the coffee expansion!
Well you know I liked playing Istanbul, not only because I said so in a previous post. But because the game is now in my collection. And I was keen to play the game with the expansion.
We decided on a random board setup, and the kebab stall instead of the fountain.
What can I say about the coffee expansion? I love it. It takes an already great game, and takes it to another level.
I love the new scoring opportunities the expansion gives you with the coffee tokens. Then also being able to block off routes with a log for the other players is also cool. I did this at one point to stop Jonathan from gaining control of the log, blocking his route to the tile where he could wrestle its control from me.
The new cards this expansion introduces are amazingly powerful. However to use one requires using up your whole turn. While also the new power up tiles also pretty powerful. I got one that allowed me to move as far as I liked in a straight line.
The kebab stall was interesting. Apart from allowing you to recall all your agents from around the board, you could also choose to move your relative counter to another tile instead and take the action on the new tile if it wasn't on the police station tile.
I only went to the kebab stall once, and that was because I played one of the new cards, that moved my merchant and agents to the fountain, and allowed me to take an extra turn straight away.
Jonathan won the game six rubies to my five. I hadn't kept an eye on him, and forgot about one of the scoring opportunities, one that gave Jonathan the win. Which was a shame, because I was three turns myself away from getting my final ruby.
I love, love this expansion. You can be sure it will be added to my collection real soon. The new tiles, cards, scoring opportunities, the ability to block routes, and the coffee trader, just brilliant additions to the game.
Once again I liked how this game played for two players. Using the unused merchant counters in the two player game, was a nice touch. These merchants are placed randomly on the board using the dice. If you land on a tile with a merchant on it, just like the multiplayer game play, to do the action on the tile you have to pay two coins (but this time to the bank). Afterwards you then roll the two dice to move the merchant to a new tile.
A great evenings gaming with Jonathan, I had a great time.
Double the value of a five pound Tesco voucher using their promotion, add two more coin of the realm, and you end up with this nice little Marvel Lego set.
I do like making Lego, it is very therapeutic. I really must get on with painting those Stormtroopers for Imperial Assault. That too I found to be like building Lego very therapeutic. But it's back to the motivation, or lack of it. Oh the catch twenty two of it all.
A new minifig arrived today, it's the uber cool looking Bobba Fett.
You have to be so careful when buying off eBay, there are a lot of keychain figures that are being sold on there that I don't like. Firstly the figures are not proper minifigs, their bodies are all one, meaning they don't come apart. Secondly the heads have holes in them where the keychain was.
These differences may not make a difference to you, however for me they are massive, and a deal breaker.
Sadly eBay is swamped by these bogus figures, and it does take time to filter out the wheat from the chaff. Which basically means reading the product descriptions carefully. But the effort is worth it.
Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy app