Last night saw another duel of bluffs and counter bluffs at the Chatteris Warlords gaming group as I took on a new opponent in Android:Netrunner.

The first game in our head to head duel was my newly constructed NEH deck against my favourite Anarch Noise.

My opponent took an early lead scoring agendas, mainly from my HQ. I was landing tags on Noise, and did cause four meat damage with a scorched earth. I managed to score some agendas to bring it back to a five/six score, with the runner being the six. Noise made a run on my HQ with two cards in my hand, both agendas. Noise had won!

I know where I have to go with this deck, I need to think about the ice, and doing more once the tags have landed. But for a first effort I didn't think it did too bad.

Our second game was my Noise against Core set Jinteki Personal Evolution. I know that with the Most Wanted List hitting particular Noise staples there will most likely be an exodus from the ID for other more green pastures. But I'm not abandoning Noise. We were instant bff's, and I stick by my friends.

My Noise deck was unchanged from last week. I wasn't going to rush into making changes based on one game. Before I start “tweaking” the deck I want at least a couple more plays before deciding what to change to correct any perceived weaknesses.

I was really doing well with Noise, I had Wyldside and Pancakes install, Street Beggar had cards on it, I had used Inject a couple of times, economy could have been better, didn't help Aesop's got trashed early by my opponent.

But with Faust installed, an unprotected Archives (for a good majority of the game), an R&D which had been left unprotected for a surprising length of time, with Medium sitting nicely with six virus counters on it (before a virus purge was eventually done) I scored five agenda points.

However during this golden spell my opponent managed to land some net damage on me taking out a KEY card! My only copy of Levy AR Lab Access got thrown onto the heap, although I had worse did do its job and get three cards back into my hand.

Levy was my only way to recycle my heap back into the stack, and it was gone!!!

You can guess what happened?

I ran out of cards. All the servers were iced up, I had no cards to fuel Faust to get in. I had ground to a stand still. Five agenda points scored, while my corporate opponent hadn't scored anything yet, and I was having to concede the game!

Losing the Levy was basically the key moment of the game. I was breaking in to the main servers at will until I ran out of cards. The card draw, getting loads of cards in to fuel Faust all worked to plan.

So despite earlier saying I wasn't going to tweak the deck, I knew I needed to tweak it for this situation. My first thought was to add a second Levy to the deck. But on my drive home I kicked myself for being so blinkered. I didn't need a second Levy, I needed Same Old Thing instead. It would give me a lot more flexibility than having a second Levy.

So there you have it back to back loses last night. But you know what? I still had a blast. I love this game, plus there are plans to have a draft matchup using the FFG draft packs at the end of the month. I'm looking forward to that.

For those remotely interested here is my NEH deck..

Near-Earth Hub (Upstalk)

Agenda (15)

1x 15 Minutes (Data and Destiny)

3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set) (MWL)

2x Award Bait (Old Hollywood)

2x Chronos Project (First Contact)

1x Explode-a-palooza (Old Hollywood)

1x Market Research (Fear and Loathing)

2x Private Security Force (Core Set)

3x Project Beale (Future Proof)

Asset (19)

2x Adonis Campaign (Core Set) ····

2x City Surveillance (Mala Tempora)

2x Daily Business Show (All That Remains)

2x Early Premiere (Old Hollywood)

2x Franchise City (The Universe of Tomorrow)

2x Ghost Branch (Core Set)

2x News Team (Data and Destiny)

2x PAD Campaign (Core Set)

1x Reversed Accounts (Up and Over)

2x Shannon Claire (Data and Destiny)

Upgrade (1)

1x Cyberdex Virus Suite (Order and Chaos)

Operation (5)

2x Media Blitz (Data and Destiny)

1x Scorched Earth (Core Set) ····

2x Shipment from SanSan (Second Thoughts)

Barrier (2)

2x Wall of Static (Core Set)

Code Gate (8)

2x Archangel (Data and Destiny)

2x Pop-up Window (Cyber Exodus)

3x Tollbooth (Core Set)

1x Turing (Breaker Bay) ···

Sentry (7)

2x Turnpike (Data and Destiny)

2x Uroboros (A Study in Static)

2x Pup (Honor and Profit) ··

1x Gutenberg (Breaker Bay)

Cards in deck: 57 (min 45)

13/14 (17-3) influence used

3 cards from MWL

Agenda Points: 25

Cards up to Data and Destiny

 

Last night I was back over to Chatteris for the Tuesday night meet up of the Chatteris Warlords. This being my second visit meant I had to fork out moolah and join the working men's club that the meet is held in (£10.50 yearly membership fee once two brave souls nominated/seconded me as a member, then £1 for joining the Gaming group for the year, and finally £1 for attending the meet).

My evening started off putting the current iteration of my Noise deck together. Then testing it against if I remember correctly an NBN deck.

I hit the corp running, using a few of the tricks I had in hand like DDOS, and Streetpeddler. The deck was working as I had intended, except in the area of economy, which needs a little tinkering.

The game came down to one run, if I didn't get past the two ice and steal the agenda, then the corp would score it on their go and get the win. If I steal it I'm victorious. My only ice breaker is Faust. I break through the first ice, the second ice is rezed and I can't use Faust with it! Foiled at the last hurdle. Well we know how this story ends. I should have run on that server earlier in the game, I had solutions, particularly the anarch favourite Parasite.

We swapped alliagiances and I played my NBN Making News deck against the Shaper Kate. My NBN deck needs a lot of work. It's an initial idea. I haven't even looked into if any of the Data and Destiny Deluxe Expanasion with its new NBN cards would make an improvement.

Somehow I managed to get a win. I think if my opponent had been a bit more aggressive on running we may have been looking at a different outcome.

It's great to see a meta taking root. There is even talk of getting a store kit for a tournament! That would be cool.

Other games going on last night were X-Wing (with some of the new Force Awakens ships), and a game of X-Com.

X-Com is one of those games that has the app as an integral part of the game. Meaning it can't be played without it. Which as I have stated before is why I won't personally buy the game. I'd like to have a play of the game though. Apparently in a discussion about the game and its reliance on the app, it appears there may be rules on line from the publisher that allow the game to be played without the app. So yes I'd like to try the game without the app also. This could be the compromise that sees me buying the game (assuming the results of both plays are favourable).

If you are wondering still why go read the Golem Arcana Final Expansion post HERE. I've never played the game so I'm not aware just how integral to the game the app is. Can it be played still with out the app? The next release of Android or iOS could completely nerf the app. It has been known for an OS update to do that to apps until the have been rebuilt with the new libraries.

I'd love to hear Ignacy's response/view to this.

But I've digressed, time to look at my NBN deck.

 

Firstly a big welcome back to anyone who skipped the last post on Pandemic Legacy. Here's what you missed… Lol had ya. But seriously here is today's post…

Last night I went along to the Chatteris Warlords Gaming Group on the promise of being able to do some running against the corporations.

Chatteris Warlords is as the name suggests a board gaming group based in the Fenland town of Chatteris. It meets up on a Tuesday night at a working man's club in the town. This means you need to join the working man's club (an annual payment of ten gold coins of the realm, unless I could pass for my nan and get the over eighties price of three and a half gold coins), which entitles you to purchase beverages from the barkeeps, plus a yearly membership fee of one gold coin to join the gaming group it self, followed paying another gold coin on the nights you attend.

Luckily for this one time I was able to “try before I bought” and go along as a guest.

When I got there I knew to speak to a couple of people (from my visits to The Hobbit Hole my FLGS) so I wasn't going in cold, not knowing anyone. A game of 7 Wonders was in progress, while the war gamers of the group were busy setting up their terrain ready to do battle in whatever historical context they had chosen.

Another guest arrived from March also there to play some Netrunner. They had played before but mainly online.

We both knew that the other players hoping to play Netrunner were noobs (mind you I'm not much better) and only had core sets. With that information in mind, that is how I built my two decks for the evening, using just what was available in the core set.

So here is “Core Noise” the Noise deck I built for playing with last night.

Noise (Core Set)

Event (17)

3x Demolition Run (Core Set)

2x Déjà Vu (Core Set)

3x Diesel (Core Set) ····· ·

3x Infiltration (Core Set)

1x Stimhack (Core Set)

3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)

2x The Maker's Eye (Core Set) ····

Hardware (4)

3x Cyberfeeder (Core Set)

1x Grimoire (Core Set)

Resource (7)

1x Aesop's Pawnshop (Core Set) ··

3x Armitage Codebusting (Core Set)

1x Ice Carver (Core Set)

2x Wyldside (Core Set)

Icebreaker (8)

3x Crypsis (Core Set)

2x Wyrm (Core Set)

1x Corroder (Core Set)

1x Mimic (Core Set)

1x Yog.0 (Core Set) (MWL)

Program (9)

2x Datasucker (Core Set)

2x Djinn (Core Set)

2x Medium (Core Set)

3x Parasite (Core Set) (MWL)

Cards in deck: 45 (min 45)

12/11 influence used

4 cards from MWL

Cards up to Core Set

I had also built a NBN Making News deck that I had with me.

We sat down to play a game, I was given the choice of which side I preferred to play Runner or Corp. I naturally went Runner.

Cards shuffled, starting hands drawn, starting credits taken, the battle lines were drawn, it was Haas-Bioroid (Engineering the Future) v Noise.

First blood went to HB, I ran archives, stole an agenda. HB scored again, I stole a second agenda from archives.

The game came down to an agenda sitting behind a remote server. It had been advanced twice. The corp scores it they win, I steal it I win.

I used infiltration to confirm it was an agenda. Then I ran that remote server. I broke through the two ice defending the remote server using my Crypsis, I had three credits left. The dirty Corp player rezed a Red Herrings, I needed five credits to steal the agenda. Bugger I only had three! I was two lousy credits short. Two lousy credits cost me the win.

Well you know how the story ends, on their turn the Corp advances the agenda and scores it for the win!

Next time we meet we will have our “normal” decks with us. So we will be able to utilise all the nice card abilities that we are used to.

It was fun playing core set cards only. You forget when building a deck how limited your choices are, and how much you rely on certain cards.

In another part of the room a new game of Netrunner was about to start. This was going to be a match up between Noise as the runner and Jinteki (Personal Evolution). The decks used were the preconstructed ones in the core set.

I watched the game, and offered help and guidance where I could. Or was that hinderance? The game ended in a win for Jinteki via meat damage. The runner had self inflicted two brain damage after playing two Stimhacks. The corp had landed a tag on the runner, and after scoring Private Security Force, that gained “spend a click: Do 1 meat damage”. It had been a waiting game on the corp side. As soon as the runner dropped to two cards in his grip, click, click, click, you are dead.

While this game was being played we discussed how much the theme of Netrunner is so awesome, and just how thematic the game is. I just love the whole Android universe.

It was time for me to head on back home. I will definitely be back and joining the group. Playing with this group will give me my miniature gaming fix (Imperial Assault/X-Wing etc), and my CCG/LCG fix.

After doing a quick head count, including myself there should be six Netrunner players. The start of a local meta? Regular Netrunner who would have thought it possible?