All posts by Darren

Thursday Night Star Realms

game night, new arrivals, star realms, tabletop

I think it's time to talk about Star Realms in the meat world, and not the digital.

Lunchtime yesterday I managed to get a couple of games with Jamie at work. These were the first games I'd played since getting the Crisis expansions. The trade deck was made up from the base set, the Crisis: Bases and Battleships expansion, the Crisis: Fleets and Fortresses expansion, from the May-June 2014 Game Day kit the Megahauler and Battle Screecher cards, from the second tournament kit Fortress Oblivion and Starbase Omega.

To cut a long story short I won both of our games. The first game was a comfortable win, however the second game was close. If it hadn't been for a couple of outposts taking the sting out of a 20 point combo attack, reducing the damage to 10 points, Jamie very well would of gone on to win the game I think. In the end I finished the game on 14 authority, to his -1 after taking a 10 point hit from me to end the second game.

Naturally we played using the new playmat. Playing the game on the official playmat the game looks amazing.

When I got home the official Star Realms storage box was waiting for me. Inside was a nice little letter from the shop I bought it's from in Germany plus a little packet of sweets. Sweets are always welcome no matter how small the packet is.

As the photo below shows you get an awful lot for your money with the storage box. The box itself is a strong cardboard with amazing artwork. White Wizard Games really do know what they are doing visually. The art work on the cards and official products like the playmat and this box is just out of this world. You also get four packets of card sleeves, four cardboard dividers, and three copies of the Mercenery Garrison outpost card.
The box will hold three base sets sleeved. Which is lots of space for a base set and the expansions that are out at the moment.
Before Luke arrived to play Star Realms I spent a bit of time sleeving all the cards I have. The official sleeves are pretty cool, the art work is the same as it is on the back of the cards. I like the fact there are plenty of sleeves included. There is more than enough to sleeve a base set, the Gambit expansion, the four expansions that make up the Crisis Expansion, and any promo cards you may have. And I still have spares left over for new additions. The sleeving of cards was followed by adding in the Mercenery Garrison to the trade deck from earlier. I somehow need to get my hands on three copies (I think that's the number allowed of this card) of the Starmarket promo card to add in, and I have all the promos, and expansions for Star Realms at this point I think.

Luke arrived and after the wolf pack had calmed down a little, I started to explain the game of Star Realms to him.

Just a quick aside, but now with all the cards sleeved the trade deck goes from a compact pile to a reproduction of the Empire State Building in cards. The sleeves really do increase the height of the trade deck considerably.

We played three games of Star Realms, with some coaching along the way. I hope I got the balance right between letting Luke make his own decisions and learning, and helping. Although I do based on my current slump playing against opponents in the app feel a bit of a fraud pretending to be an “expert” who knows what he's talking about. Between games and at the end I pointed out one or two of my favourite cards and explained why.

Near the end of the third game, Luke got a great combo working that ended up in hitting me for 23 points of damage.
Luke enjoyed playing the game and is planning to get the app so that he can get more practice playing the game before the next time we play.
Through out the evening what I thought was Strider knorring a bone was in fact him knorring the table leg. When caught he tried licking it as if that would fix what he had done! Below is a photo of the naughty Strider having been caught in the act.
So a great day with Star Realms playing with the cards. Great games (and I'm not saying that because I won, I love playing this game win or lose) and great opponents. I love the app and playing against opponents from who knows where. And this is great especially if you have no-one local to play with. But and this applies to all boardgames really, playing across the table from some-one, interacting, having that physical product interaction just can't be replicated. It's a different experience. I love both experiences, but it's really cool to be playing with the cards and seeing the reactions when you pull off those combos and hit them with a large damage score, and the banter that goes with it.

 

Whose Watching Rorschach?

lego minifigs

The custom Lego minifig of Rorschach from The Watchmen arrived today. The figure looks pretty awesome. There are some great custom figures available being made by very talented people.

Some parts also arrived for use in projects, like these walking sticks. I've added one to my custom hiker to give you an idea of one in use.
The Indiana Jones set came. The bits I wanted it for are really cool. Plus I now have an Indy figure for the collection.
Finally the Luke Skywalker and Emperor figures I have never had lightsabers. They didn't because they came with books. So I got some in to use with the figures. Sometimes it's the little details that make a model or scene. These and the walking sticks will make a big difference.
I'm still awaiting some parts to arrive from one of my usual places to get them. Usually they are quicker than this. Will have to contact them to see what's happened to them.

 

Tomorrows Plans

star realms

Tomorrow night my friend Luke is coming round to learn Star Realms and to play a game or two. I've said previously that I find the physical card game has a different feel to it.

After I got the four packs that made up the Crisis expansion I instantly shuffled all four packs into the base set. But since then I haven't had chance to play the physical game with the expansion. I've also added to the play deck the cards that made up the two organised play kits that came out last year.

But as the photo above shows I now have the elusive Gambit expansion also. Since the Gambit expansion hit the app version of the game the Merc Cruiser has become one of my favourite cards. So I'm chuffed to be adding it to the play deck.

For the games with Luke tomorrow I've removed the Heroes and Events Crisis expansions from the deck, and will not bother using the Gambit cards. I think it makes little difference having extra ships and bases in the deck, they don't change the game play, and add more variety. But throwing in the extra game play elements of Gambit cards, Heroes and Events I think would be too overwhelming.

I've also now got an official playmat which looks dam awesome. It's just a dam shame getting them and the Gambit expansion is nigh on impossible in the UK at the moment. Distribution and getting product out to stores is something White Wizard Games needs to work on big time. I know they are a small company it really hurts them customers not being able to buy their stuff.

I just need the storage box to arrive now, oh from Germany. Another product hard to get. People try the game and love it, but they need product available for people to buy. White Wizard seem to have solved the availability of the base game and Crisis. But come on get this stuff out to the rest of us. Wizkids are just as bad. The delays between the U.S. being able to buy official dice bags and playmats and the UK getting them was ridiculous.

I'm really looking forward to playing tomorrow night. I enjoy playing this game, and chances to play with the cards are rare. So being able to share the game, shuffle cards is exciting. I'm hoping Luke will enjoy playing.

 

Star Realms My Slump

star realms

At the start of last weekend I was knocking on the door of breaking into level 8 in Star Realms And hoping to make some progress towards reaching level 9. I'd been hovering around the top end of level 7, sometimes breaking into level 8. Only to slide back into level 7 after a couple of losses. My win percentage of games was 60%, it had been as high as 63% at one point.

But things have a habit of not going to plan. Since Friday I've been losing more games than I have won. It's been like one step forward, two back. I'm in the middle of a slump. Last night I checked my level I had slipped down to the top end of level 6.

That was when it really hit home how badly I had been playing recently. This wasn't a slump it was a full on decline.

To be fair I have been playing lots more people, so maybe it was inevitable that I would start clocking up more losses.

When I joined the Facebook community at the start of last week, and asked people to challenge me, it was with the intent to see just how good I was and to play more games. I was getting an inflated opinion of my abilities. Having challenged and played more people now, who are obviously more skilled at the game than me. I do now have a more realistic view of where I am in the scheme of things with regard to Star Realms.

Realistically and not very comforting for my ego and pride I'm not nearly as good as I thought I was. With a severly bruised pride I know I have to improve.

The day dream of storming on the competitive scene has been crushed. See yesterday's post about my experience of my first tournie for more details. The New Years fireworks display ended up being less impressive than a damp squib.

Since the new release of the Star Realms app and the league tables it introduced I've not done enough to even break into the lower tiers of the league tables. Another indicator that I'm just not cutting it at the higher levels.

Maybe I'm setting myself too high a standard. I'd like to think I offer a reasonable challenge when played. But on current form the evidence suggests otherwise.

Now this post may sound like I'm really down on the game at the moment. But that can't be further than the truth. I love playing the game. I think it comes across in my recent posts how much I love playing the game, even when I lose.

I know just round the corner my next win could be the start of a run that ends this slump and takes me back to where I was before the weekend. It could take me to new heights and into level 9.

So if you want to play me on Star Realms my ID is whitespider hit me up for a game or two.

 

Lego Log Cabin

lego minifigs, new arrivals

I bought a second hand Lego log cabin set off eBay saving a bit of money. It arrived today, so naturally I had to put it together straight away. I was going to buy this set ages ago to get the hiker and backpack before deciding to make my own. But when I saw this on eBay at a very very good price I had to get it. But now it was because of one of the three designs the set could make. I dug out the plans for desired design and set about making the Lego log cabin.

Official Lego minifig hiker vs mine

I really do think I've done a far far better job of representing a hiker/backpacker than Lego. If it wasn't for the backpack on the Lego character you'd never guess it was meant to be a hiker. I think the hat, and the custom torso I sourced work so much better. Maybe Lego should get me in to design minifigs.

 

My First Star Realms Casual Tournament

star realms

Playing Star Realms is such an emotional roller coaster. The cards one day are with you and you get a winning streak, everything works, combo after combo falls into place, the ships and bases you want are available on your turn to buy. The next day the cards turn on you and all of sudden you are in a slump. Grasping, hoping for a win, nothing works for you. Instead of combos you get single ships surrounded by the starting cards. It gets nigh on impossible to accrue enough attack points to destroy the weakest of outposts.

After the high of Saturday and that 54 point cardtastic combo attack on Freddy. It was my turn to be on the receiving end of another first for me. I've been playing Crshaner for about a week now. I've won some games against him, but on the whole he has won the majority of our games together. In this particular game Crshaner's authority just kept going up and up. I couldn't get through his wall of bases and outposts that he threw up. My own wall of outposts was pathetic, a token resistance easily taken out by Crshaner.

Once again it was one of those games were I was just delaying the inevitable. Nothing was working for me. I wasn't exactly making a dent in Crshaner's authority. Everything I did seemed futile. With the finishing blow the final authority gap was 124 to 0! It was an awesome finishing blow too, 41 points. My biggest loss to date in a game. Previously I've been on the wrong end of a 76 – 0 score line, but nothing like this. This game will live on in my newly built hall of infamy that has been built next to my rather shabby looking hall of fame.

I've mentioned before I think, my inability to finish off an opponent. I've done all the hard work, and then the cards turn against me. All I need is a handful of points to get the win, and all the cards give me are coins to buy cards! This usually ends up being enough of a breather for my opponent to pull off a couple of turns worth of combos to get the win. In this game with gman yesterday it looked like I was falling into this familiar pattern again. I'd got him down to about 8 authority, and then the run of cards from my deck hit where all I was drawing was currency. At this point I was on a healthy 30 odd points. Within a couple of turns gman had me down to 3 authority I was once more looking at having victory taken away from me. If my next draw of cards didn't give me enough attack there was no way I'd survive the gmans next turn.

The cards are really a fickle master/mistress (depending on your point of view). Suddenly the cards took pity on me for once. From the depths of despair and an inevitable loss, I had enough to snatch the win. The releaf of getting the victory, the feeling of having stolen the win against the odds. Which is odd really because before I failed to draw the cards to finish off gman for the win I had the upper hand.

Last night also saw me take part in my first Star Realms Casual Tournament that is organised by Matt “TheCutter” Newburg on the Star Realms Fan Created Community Page. Before the tournament I had played Matt for a couple of days. How to sum up those games? Well it would be fair to say that Matt has won all of them except one! So not a great record against Matt. But I do enjoy my games, I may not be a challenge to Matt but I will defeat him on a more regular basis as my game improves or the cards get kinder to me.

The prizes for this tournament were some signed Star Realms cards which would go to the top 8 players. A pretty cool prize. Because of the number of players the draft for the first round went up in three parts. The first part of the draft went up, Freddy had been given an opponent. However my name was missing, my name was also not on the second part of the draft. So I still had no idea who my opponent would be.

Then the third part of the first round draft list went up. I had been drawn against Matt. I had just been given this tournaments version of being drawn against Ronny O'Sullivan one of the best snooker players in the world.

Did I have an impending sense of doom? Hell no! I'm a Liverpool supporter. I had hope in my heart. Ok my track record wasn't brilliant against Matt but I had beaten him once. So it was possible. Not likely but possible. A slither of light at the end of the tunnel. I'll take those odds!

Matt and I finished our current game we were playing. Oddly enough I lost that game.

I then issued the challenge for our first game for this round. I chose to play with the gambit expansion that had just came out. I've been enjoying that expansion since it was available (a look at the app and expansion will appear later in the week). Matt then messaged my saying he had been one of the testers for the gambit expansion and had a lot of experience with it. I replied I knew because Matt had already talked about this on the Megahaulin Podcast (I do hope that if you are a Star Realms fan you are listening to that podcast). Plus I didn't really care I'm having a blast playing this game win or lose. And as I have already said I like playing this expansion.

I won't bore you with a long winded blow by blow account of the games. It is suffice to say that the games went true to form and I lost 2-0. There wasn't much point playing the third game of the round.

My first Star Realms Casual Tournament ended at the first hurdle. A little disappointing, I'd of liked to have won one game. Buts that cards for you. Sometimes they are cruel the next moment they are your best friend. Today they decided to kick me when I was down also.

I'll be back in for the next tournament, it was a fun but brief experience for my first one. But it's this roller coaster of a game that I love so much. It's such and addictive and fun game. And now I'm playing a variety of different players my game will improve. Watch out for me world!

Freddy won his first round match 2-1, so is through to the next round. I wish Freddy and Matt all the best in the rest of the tournament, and hope they both make the final 8 for a prize.

 

Yesterday in Star Realms

star realms
Yesterday I woke up and as usual the first thing I did was check my emails. There was a facebook one telling me I had been tagged in a post by Freddy. I went to look what Freddy wanted me to see. Two players SongbirdT and TeaPotKitty had played a game where SongbirdT scored an amazing 54 attack to wipe out a 50 point authority score of TeaPotKitty to win the game.
Then later in the day worthless posted a similar screen shot this time knocking out ayoj with a 65 point attack.
It seemed the day for big knock out attacks on the fan page. Seeing those posts did kind of hit the confidence, making me feel abit out of my league.
Even later in the day in one of our games together it was Freddy's turn to play knocked about boxer on the ropes. However I was struggling to get the cards drawn to give the knock out blow. I kept drawing the initial starting cards. I hate being in this situation when it's me on the other end. You just want to be put out of your misery, but there is that little bit of hope, that light at the end of the tunnel. If I just hang in there I can get back in the game. But like a false summit while walking up a mountain the hope is also false. In reality it seems more like a cat playing with a captured mouse, while the other player is waiting for the cards to fall into place to dispatch you with the finishing blow.
Then the cards fell into place for me. And they kept falling into place, and the attack points kept racking up. And they kept racking up. Suddenly I couldn't believe it I had built up an attack score of 54 points. This was the highest attack I'd ever done in a game since I started playing. Previously my highest score had been in the thirties.

What a way to finish off a game. After seeing those earlier scores and having that crisis of confidence. I never thought I'd achieve a score like this. And on the same day as the other ones too.

Having seen those earlier games I challenged those involved to a game. I think I'm doing ok, and being a challenge for them. I'm hopefully taking part in the fan pages casual tournament this week. It will be interesting to see how I do.

 

Just in this weekend

lego minifigs, new arrivals, tabletop

New Minifigs

Two new official minifigs from the local Tesco. The alien and a space soldier, both look pretty awesome. I think the only figure I've been disappointed with has been the genie so far.

New Tabletops

So yes I was that impressed Thursday night with the following game. It's a very reasonable price too. A great game for gamers and non gamers, Bouncy plays it with his kids, so great for families.
I played the odd game of Blood Bowl while I was studying down in Brighton. I know the miniature game has been reprinted and I think updated, and popular again. I'd love to get back into it, but I have enough miniature based games at the mo (can you ever have enough?), there is only so many a wallet can support unless you win the lottery. However they spun off a card game from the Blood Bowl IP. The reviews are fairly good, so I thought this was a “cheaper” way to get a Blood Bowl fix without the miniature game cost.

 

TGOC Minifig Project Part 1

lego minifigs

A Little Background

Every May for nigh on 30 years now there has been an organised event that involves walking from the west coast of Scotland to the east coast in a two week period. For the majority of those years the event has been know by its main sponsor The TGO Challenge or TGOC. The TGOC is limited to roughly three hundred participants. Those three hundred souls at the start are spread out unevenly along the west coast of Scotland where they have to sign out at one of the six (? There maybe more I can't rightly remember) sign in points. They then hike and camp their way across Scotland to the east coast and then make their way to the finish sign in point at Montrose and the celebratory meal with their fellow Challengers.

Before I joined the academic world as a lecturer I completed two crossings (2008 & 2009, my 2007 attempt I'll revisit another day in a repost of the dramatic events). However the hero of my 2007 attempt Lord Elpus this year is doing his twelfth crossing, whilst Alan will be completing his twentieth crossing. Think about that twenty crossings! It will for various reasons that are not mine to say their final crossings. They plan to move on to new scenery and more better guaranteed weather. Which also means if invited I will be able to join them on the new adventures (I'll need to sort out my passport) because they won't be tied to that teacher unfriendly window in May.

So in honour of this momentous occasion and to celebrate my two friends I thought I'd make a couple of custom minifigs of Alan and Lord Elpus. But I didn't want to stop there I wanted to make this a bit more special but I will reveal those plans in another post.

The posts for this project will be part memoir/reflection as well as documenting the building process. Mind you I have already been getting bits in over the months, and I think the next post in this series should be a look at what I have already got for this project.

 

Another Gaming Night at TEC

game night, tabletop

Thursday night saw myself, Bouncy, Gavin and Gareth gather at The Entertainment Centre in Wisbech for the second games night there.

While Gareth nipped out to stock up on supplies from a nearby convience store the rest of us had a quick game of Cthulu Dice. Cthulu Dice is another dice game from Steve Jackson Games, home of Munchkin, Zombie Dice and Ogre. Unlike Zombie Dice this uses a single dice (I forget how many sides, more that 6) each with a symbol on representing some sort of forfeit, such as lose a token, gain a token etc. rolling the dice is treated like casting a spell, so you have to declare before rolling who you are casting against. You then roll the dice and act upon the symbol. Each player starts with three tokens which I think and I maybe wrong represent sanity. But basically it’s a last person standing game. I won both games that we squeezed in. It was a fun game, not as much fun as the push your luck Zombie Dice. As long as you don’t mind the theme of the two dice games these are great as quick family games play.

With Gareth back and stocked up on supplies it was time to play the first game of the evening Splendor. Gavin had wanted to play this to see if it was suitable for his kids. I’m glad he had asked to play it. I hadn’t played it before, but it had been getting good reviews, winning awards last year when it came out.



You will have to forgive me if I get this bit about the theme wrong, we skipped the theme to get straight to the game. In Splendor you are I believe a jewel dealer/merchant in The Renaissance. Collecting gems to buy resources, some of which have a point value that you use for scoring. Once a player has reached fifteen points that’s the end of the game. That’s a very basic description of the game. Which doesn’t do the game justice. The games mechanics reminded me a lot of Alhambra.

I didn’t win the game I came second from last, Gareth took the honours of winning. However I did enjoy the game a lot. Hence a copy is due to arrive today. This is another “gateway” game, easily accessible, great fun. I think next time I visit my friends Julie and Martin this game will be in the bag to play with them. I know they will enjoy playing this a lot.

The second game of the evening was one I’d played once before and own, Machi Koro (Julie And Martin enjoyed playing this) . I like Machi Koro a lot, it’s what some would consider a “gateway” game, or a light game. But more importantly it’s a fun game. While playing Machi Koro everytime someone rolled a dice and it came up with a number where others got money, a cheer went up from those receiving money. For a lot of the game I was leading the game having built three of my establishments. However all of a sudden I was losing money and not accruing it to buy the final establishment. Then all of a sudden Gavin had lots of money to buy the final two establishments to win. There was nothing any of us could do to stop him winning. How did this happen? None of us had been tracking his coins, and he managed to sneak under the radar to get the win. What a great game, I had so much fun playing.

Sadly being a work night it was time for me to go home. As I left a final quick round or two Zombie Dice was going to be played.

A great evening of game with great gamers. Looking forward to the next one.