After a relaxed start to the day (which I’m totally allowed seeing as I’m on holiday) I taught Nathan how to play the two player game Splendor Duel.
As usual I didn’t win. If my bgstat app is correct (and why wouldn’t it be?) I have never, I’ll repeat that never won a game of Splendor in any of the editions I have owned or own! Bloody good job I enjoy playing it.
The rest of our day was taken up by a dentist visit for Nathan, cooking “not spaghetti bolognaise” (ask Diego why it was not the dish, ok adding baked beans, mushrooms, and using chorizo, may technically mean it wasn’t), and Nathan wanting to watch the evenings football match between Southampton and Man City.
Today saw us pop into town for a Burger King lunch and a visit the local boardgame shop.
I had gone there with the purpose of just getting the Mutant Genesis expansion for Marvel Champions. However the Storm character expansion joined it, along with the Agora expansion for 7 Wonders Duel.
As soon as we got home (after a coffee) we played an all in game of 7 Wonders Duel. That’s the core game plus the Pantheon and Agora expansion.
We both really enjoyed the game. Agora brings in a new decision, tactical element, and win condition.
Control all six senate chambers and you get an instant political win.
A victory I was one chamber away from achieving at the start of the third age. However Nathan only needed one more symbol for the science win. He was going first at the start of the third age, and was hoping for a science card as an option to buy.
Obviously the tension built up as I laid out the cards in the third age pattern. It was down to the last two cards to be drawn and placed. Indeed one of those cards was not only a science card but the sixth symbol he needed. Instant win for Nathan.
Yes playing with everything means the game takes longer to setup and play. But I think it’s worth it. I like the extra stuff going on. You can’t afford to not to be paying attention to what your opponent is collecting.
The area control element of the senate chambers is cool. Having the majority in a chamber gives you control and some sort of power up you get to use through out the game. Plus points for end of game scoring if it goes to the bitter end.
Yeah I think we’ll be playing all in from now on. Just need to get my own copy now.
Right time to make tea followed by Star Wars Outer Rim (Nath’s favourite boardgame).
In reality it’s more like half a day as I leave at midday to avoid traffic (especially the M25 leg), and to get back early enough for Mum who is on dog sitting duties. Apparently the two little horrors play her up rotten during the night!
After getting Nathan to empty and load up his dishwasher we had time for a game before I had to hit the road.
Nathan chose a favourite of ours 7 Wonders Duel.
This was a game that went to the wire, unlike our previous game during my last visit.
There was some take that with me stealing one of Nathan’s unbuilt wonders using a deity, Nathan destroying a couple of my cards (very annoying).
I did manage to build all four of my wonders.
However the game did go all three ages and to the final scoring.
I managed to scrape a win by two whole points.
And that was it. Time to pack away the game. Gather my things, and say our farewells.
I hate saying good bye to Nathan. I love our time together so much. I wish we were closer (geographically) so I could see him more often.
For those interested for the last couple of weeks I’ve been listening to Wil Wheaton’s Still Just A Geek (thanks to my friend Duncan for telling me about it). And on the trip down to see Nath this is what I was listening to.
It’s been a very hard listen on a personal level.
There was much that Wil talked about that resonated with me and my life experiences.
The journey back was used to catch up on a podcast or two.
With the imminent release of the next WotC D&D book, Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen I wanted to listen to some of the reviews/first looks to see if I should cancel my pre-order on Amazon.
It was the reviews (podcasts and youtube) that warned me about Spelljammer not being worth the money, falling short on what a DM might need compared to books like Eberron.
Podcasts I listened to on my journey home
I’m not cancelling my order. But I’m glad I bought the campaign source book because it’s not the product I really wanted.
My ideal product would have been a Dragonlance version of the Eberron book. In reality it looks more like we are getting something in line with Avernus.
However it has stuff that will still be useful in running a homebrew campaign in the Dragonlance universe.
No gaming took place last night. After a pretty cool roast dinner we watched the Wales vs England match, and then John Wick 2 (we had watched John Wick the previous night, and guess what we are watching tonight?)
Why a roast dinner last night?
Nathan gets all the credit for that. I guess he fancied it while I was down visiting, because Sunday he said he had bought the stuff to make one, like a whole chicken, etc. Only problem he had was he’d never cooked a chicken before. So cooking duties fell onto me.
I’m still getting used to his oven, but the Yorkshire puddings came out ok.
I got to go into Basingstoke Centre today, and visit a gaming shop called The Gaming Den. Lots of stock, which is nice to see. I could easily have spent lots of money there but I was super strong.
Ok it helped that a visit to a stationary shop to pick up some index cards turned out to be a tad more expensive than planned.
Once home I quickly wrote out a couple of recipes that he’d asked for on the index cards and put them on Nath’s whiteboard for him.
The afternoon saw me making chicken noodle soup and visiting the Stonemaier web store to order the three new realms that were released today.
But whilst on the virtual store I was pleasantly surprised to see the Tapestry play mat had also been released.
I was aware Jamey had been looking at doing a play mat for Tapestry. But it had escaped me that they were actually in production. So I was definitely not expecting them in the store today.
After having the chicken noodle soup with slices of a fresh baguette to help mop it up, Nathan and I watched a brief Roll for Crit how to play for Marvel Champions.
It refreshed my memory (I don’t play this nearly enough) and gave Nathan an overview of the game.
It was enough so that we could play the following match up.
Nathan played Wolverine, whilst I played Phoenix.
Things seemed to be going well. The threat level of Thanos’s scheme was under control (by Phoenix) whilst he was getting thumped by Wolverine.
Then it went all Pete Tong as they used to say.
Thanos thumped Phoenix for a massive seven damage, followed by his minion Black Dwarf finishing the job off.
This left Wolverine to stand toe to toe with Thanos trading blows.
It was a heroic effort but in the end to no avail as Thanos managed to complete his scheme.
We really enjoyed going up against Thanos. With a better card draw we might have won. I think that is the difference between this game and the one with Diego with Ultron.
In that game our hero selection was totally unsuitable for the villain and his schemes. We got thrashed.
Here the match up seemed more appropriate. Phoenix keeping the threat under control whilst Wolverine did what Wolverine does. It felt like we had a chance.
Nathan really enjoyed our game of this. So it will find a place in the bag on future visits.
Our final game of the evening was a game of Rolling Realms.
Another winner with Nathan, despite me winning. But the scores were pretty close.
Our evening is finishing with the third film in the John Wick series.
There seems a nice symmetry to this months gaming.
November started with me visiting Nathan and playing games with him, and it ends that way too.
It means so much that I am able to spend time with Nathan. That wasn’t always the case over the last few years. Caring for Nan meant it wasn’t possible to get away for a couple of days to visit him. It was a heavy price to pay. But we did willingly out of love for Nan.
After having toad in the hole with onion gravy for tea Nathan and I played the latest expansion for Wingspan, and also stand alone two player game, Wingspan Asia.
But before we played I had to open up the box it came in (yep I hadn’t even done this since it arrived a couple weeks back), take off the cellophane, punch cardboard, and quickly read up the rule changes for duet mode.
I’m not sure why but playing Wingspan with unsleeved or “naked” cards felt so so wrong. It just didn’t feel right.
Wingspan Asia can be used as a straight up expansion for Wingspan by just shuffling the cards that come into the box with the core games plus any other expansions. Which is how it’ll probably end up for me.
This expansion makes it so Wingspan can also be played by six or seven players in what is called flock mode. Or as I will refer to it as “not for me mode”.
Then we have the final way this expansion can be used, and that is duet mode.
Duet mode is a two player variant of standard Wingspan that adds a duet board, and new end of round objectives based on that board.
You get to place a piece on the duet board when you play a bird or a card ability allows you put a bird on the board. Where the piece goes on the board depends on the habitat the bird was played on, plus either the food type used to pay for it, it’s nest type, wing span, or direction looking.
Some of the spots on the duet board also give you a bonus of some kind when a piece is placed on it, like drawing a bird card, or getting an egg.
If you can’t or don’t want to place a piece on the duet board you can instead place it on the area in the bottom left of the board. Then on a future turn remove the piece from there to reset either the food tray or the bird market place. I like this a lot. Ok I didn’t do it. But just having that there as an option is pretty cool. It also makes that placement of the duet piece a harder decision.
I like what the duet board brings to the table in a two player game. It adds a new tactical element and decisions that need to be made that encourages the playing of birds.
I also like that the first player marker goes to the player that didn’t win the end of round scoring. It almost feels like an attempt at a catch up mechanism!
This may just be how I play Wingspan from now on when visiting Nathan. Which is the only time I play Wingspan two player.
The bgstat history books will record that I beat Nathan with a tucking engine!
Today, as the events already told were yesterday, has seen a relaxed start to the day.
Starting with my regular everyday breakfast of a mug of coffee and two Nevill’s Pains Au Chocolat. What can I say I’m a creature of habit. Except when Tesco don’t have them. Then I have to improvise.
After a relaxing soak in the bath reading a book on data science, it was time to take a trip.
A trip to the local shops sees a charity shop find that no-one boasts about on the Facebook boardgaming groups I belong to. I got a large saucepan and a couple of trays ideal to make Yorkshire puddings in. I need, well Nathan needs that big pot. Tomorrow I’m turning the left over chicken from our roast today into chicken soup for him. He didn’t have a pot large enough for that.
Lunch for us was an impromptu fry up to use up the remaining sausages Nathan had in the fridge, and some mushrooms just on the right side of edible.
I did start to look at the Star Wars card game Sabacc that Nathan bought whilst he was State side the other month. We’ll play that over the next day or two for sure.
Our first game of the day was Tinners Trail.
I’ve only played this once before as a three player game with Jeff and Jonathan.
So playing it as a two player game was interesting.
It wasn’t an unenjoyable experience. I just thought the bidding was a little flat with two players.
History will show that Nathan won by a massive two points.
Right I have a roast dinner to cook before some more games this evening.
It really was great to play 7 Wonders Duel again. It’s still got the magic. But like the many fantastic two player games that I own it just doesn’t get the love it deserves. Mainly because not a lot of two player gaming gets to take place.
History and the bgstat app will record that I won with a scientific victory in the third age. What it won’t show is if it had gone the distance Nathan was in a much stronger position than me to claim a points victory.
After a break it was time to introduce Nathan to an uncooperative boardgame!
Yep Portal the uncooperative cake acquisition boardgame was going to test the father son bonds!
This is a great two player game, that I really do need to try at the higher player counts.
However in this game there was a lot of incinerating each other’s cake. With the last few turns getting very tactical. It looked like I was going to win by a single slice of cake. In fact the only slice of cake that would be left on the board. However in a last desperate move Nathan managed to force a tie by incinerating his and my last pieces of cake at the same time.
Which meant the game went to the tiebreaker, and having the most test subjects on the board meant I was able to claim victory.
After a home made sweet and sour pork for tea, and some episodes of South Park it was time to visit a galaxy far, far away, and play Star Wars Outer Rim with the Unfinished Business expansion.
As the embedded Instagram picture I shared below shows the game is a bit of a table hog. Especially on Nath’s table. We’d never have got a third or even fourth player round the table.
We cherry picked the bits from Unfinished Business that we’d add to the core game. The bits that made the cut were the core worlds, and ambitions. In a two player game I didn’t see much point playing with favours.
Below you can see which characters we chose to play and the ambitions.
Jyn managed to buy a YT-1300, which had a couple of mods that gave me a critical hit in combat, plus one that meant my opponents also rolled one less die.
With out those two mods I wouldn’t have been able to take on the empire patrols to enable me to attempt my final ambition condition.
Thanks to Nathan channelling his inner Jonathan for his dice rolls, whilst he was trying to do his final ambition and failing (several times) I was able to swoop in and grab victory by completing mine. I was greatly helped by Nathan rolling for the Empire.
You’ve probably guessed I won. Ten fame points and a completed ambition board.
With a weeks holiday ahead of me I took the opportunity to visit Nathan for a couple of days.
I arrived Monday afternoon managing to avoid any of the usual traffic jam points like the M25.
The evening saw me attempting to teach Nathan how to play Brazil Imperial to very limited success.
The map I chose was an official from the publisher that I got off the bgg page for the game.
It looked an interesting two player map with the island in the middle. The chances of combat were low for this map, which I thought was perfect for a learning game. One less thing to have to absorb.
Nathan was finding it hard to follow what was going on.
I don’t think it helped with Nathan’s focus that he had consumed approximately three quarters of a bottle of 1800 tequila.
So we gave up after an hour or so of play. He wasn’t enjoying it.
There was no point playing another game so we had a film night instead watching The Batman. I’m not sure I like the look of The Riddler in the movie. But it’s a pretty solid Batman effort with a focus more on the detective side of the character. Which I like. After all he is the worlds greatest detective!
Tuesday saw Alien Fate of the Nostromo hit the table for a learning game.
I had bought this for Nathan’s birthday after he had said he regretted not getting it on his recent holiday in the US.
Wow! I love that when you open up the box you are confronted by a hissing Jonesy. It’s a lovely bit of art that does take you a little by surprise.
I played Ripley with Nathan playing Dallas.
Being brave souls we also played with Ash. Which is meant to add a further complication to the game.
I really do like the art on the player boards. It really captures the characters from the movie. The publisher could have easily gone the movie stills route. But I’m glad they didn’t. This art looks so much better.
The miniatures in the game look very nice detail wise. Just a shame they are made from a very soft plastic. Maybe a better quality would have pushed up the final cost of the game. Let’s face it, as boardgames go this is not an expensive game. There is a mass market feel to it.
It’s also a big shame that Ash isn’t also a miniature instead of the standee.
I’m not sure if we misplayed a rule or two. But this felt suspiciously easy to win. Maybe we got lucky with the mission cards we drew for the game.
It’s just weird having played other Co-ops which even on their easy settings seemed more challenging.
Of cause it could be as the designer of the game Scott Rogers said we just got real lucky. Sometimes it happens.
Our three objectives for the game and the final mission.
We had fun playing the game. I liked the basic crafting mechanic. It definitely felt like Alien. Liked the fact when you encountered the alien you take a moral hit and run away. The encounter tiles added to the suspense, and making it feel like the movie.
Later on I introduced Nathan to the flip and write Welcome to the Moon. So you know what is coming now.
The following post may or may not contain spoilers for the Welcome to the Moon campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one if you plan to play the campaign and want to experience it’s twists and turns as surprises for yourself. REMEMBER you have been warned.
As I was setting up the game I noticed on the first adventures player board that there is a Dalek that looks like it might be trying to get on the rocket!
How did I not notice this before!
Nathan noticed it straight away.
What a bloody cool little easter egg to include.
The Dalek
I decided we would work our way through the campaign. So instead of reading all the text I summarised the story so far for Nathan.
We then played Adventure 1 which obviously we chose a different route to the other campaign. Once again I was the captain for our initial efforts.
This route had us remove the number 7 card from the game, plus we are able to choose the mission cards for each adventure.
Mission cards for adventure 1 (top) and adventure 2 (bottom)
Nathan won the first adventure to become the captain for adventure 2.
Just like our experiences in the other campaign play through, this second adventure caught Nathan unawares. He too had been lulled into that false sense of security and “simplicity” of the first adventure.
All of a sudden the complexity level was dialled up a few notches.
I think Nathan didn’t enjoy this adventure as much because of this.
Our twist in adventure 2 was that we could circle plants on any of the orbiting stations regardless of where we wrote the number.
Adventure 2 Chapter path taken: 148,79,106,92
Our evening was finished off with another movie night, this time we watched the Nicolas Cage move The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
A movie in which he plays himself! Who then gets roped in by the CIA to help rescue a kidnapped girl. It’s not a bad film. The de-aging of Cage is a bit ropey. Definitely one of his better recent efforts.
Somehow I survived the week at work to make it to my weeks holiday.
It’s my first week off since the holiday reset in April. I still have four more weeks to take off before the end of March next year. The plan is over the following four months I have a weeks holiday each month.
But my focus is now on this week of R&R and visiting Nathan.
Naturally we will be spending time playing board games, watching the odd movie, and just having quality father son time.
But what games will I be taking for us to play?
Well I have to take one for sure as it was requested by Nathan, and that is Wingspan. Nathan like so many others, myself included, really likes Wingspan. Sadly Wingspan Asia won’t be out in time for this visit (next time) but we are going to have a blast anyway playing it.
One of the attractions of Marvel Champions for me was that I thought it is something Nathan and I can play together. I know Nathan will love the theme, but will he love this co-op lcg?
I can’t play Scythe with Nathan. Well I could if he had a big enough table. And that’s the issue and a major constraint on what we can play. So instead of playing my all time favourite board game I’ll introduce him to one or two similar mechanisms by taking the impressive Brazil Imperial. It’s modular board makes it ideal for a visit to Nathan’s.
Star Wars Outer Rim barely fits on Nathan’s table, but it’s a game he likes. Which means I don’t really need an excuse or reason to include it, but with the Unfinished Business expansion having come out since we played it I know he will be keen to get this to the table.
I think Nathan will enjoy Smash Up, once again I can go the Marvel route to start with to hook him in.
Nathan has enjoyed the roll/flip and writes he’s tried in the past. Sadly Twilight Inscription is too large for his table! Which means I’ll be taking Welcome to the Moon for him to try.
Nathan will love Smitten I’m sure of it, and I envisage us playing several games of this over my visit.
I’m going to try the campaign Gloom Chronicles or at least the parts I have the expansions for with Nathan. It’s going to be interesting to see if he gets into the storytelling side of the game.
The final game I’m throwing into the bag is Portal the board game. We are both fans of the video game, and I think he will like this game that captures the spirit of the video game nicely.
There is one other game I’m taking however it will be staying there. Nathan had his birthday earlier in the month and I bought him a board game for it.
It could be only one game, the one he nearly bought on his recent holiday in the US, Alien Fate of the Nostromo.
This game by Scott Rogers has been on my radar since it was announced. I just never got round to pulling the trigger on getting it until now.
At the start of the week I got a chance to spend a couple of days with my son Nathan.
Naturally we got some gaming in while I was visiting.
Our first game was an introduction to roll/flip and writes for Nathan with Cartographers.
I set up the game using the play mat for it, the two skills mini expansions, and the ambush mini expansion.
The benefit of the mini expansions is more variety when playing, particularly with the ambush cards.
The skills mini expansions was the first time playing with them. They add an extra thing you can do each season, such as draw a 1×1 square and fill it with a particular terrain type. The skills have a cost, and you can only use one of them per season. I like what this brings to the game. It’s an extra decision to make during a season, it’s not a big overhead at all.
Cartographers
Our second game was Libertalia Winds of Galecrest.
I know Nath really liked the game as he asked to play it again straight away after finishing our first game. The second game we used the stormy tiles.
Libertalia Winds of Galecrest
Another roll and write hit the table next, Dungeons, Dice & Danger.
This was new to both of us. We used the novice Annoyed Animals map.
Dungeons, Dice & Danger and The Cousin’s War 2nd Edition
I really liked this. I think Nath did as well, and might be keen to try one of the other maps.
Our final game of the day was The Cousin’s War (Second Edition). This was the first time playing the game since I bought it three (?) years ago at the UK Games Expo.
We experienced both types of plays you can have with this game. Our first game was over in 5 minutes (maximum) after one round. With the second game going to 30 mins and all 5 rounds.
Who Won What
Our last game of my visit was to introduce Nathan to one of the more complicated roll and writes out there, the combotastic (can you guess what it is yet?)… Three Sisters. Just for the lols I added in the mini weather expansion as well.
Nathan agreed this had a lot more going on than the other roll/flip and writes we had played.
I really do like when an expansions adds very little complication to a game mechanic wise. I like how it makes use of the last die left on the rondel to select an additional minor rule for the next round.
Three Sisters Result
Movies watched with Nathan:
Dune (2021)
Jurassic World
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
I still had to slum it on the coffee front. But at least I got to cook for Nath. I tried to impart recipes to him. But he had no interest. However he did like my chicken noodle soup, and my sweet and sour chicken.
Some more targeted buys for Star Wars: Destiny also arrived. Which means I now have a playset of all the commons and uncommons for the Awakenings wave. I also have Luke now, so an eLuke/eRey build will be something I start playing with pretty soon.
In the afternoon a game I’ve wanted to get to the table for a longtime finally got to the table. As the Rock would probably say “Finally! Battlestar Galactica the boardgame has hit the table!”
A day or two earlier Nath had said “there’s a boardgame?” when I told him of Saturdays plan. “Oh yes” was my reply.
Jeff, Nath, myself, Diego, and Monia boarded the Galactica to lead the rememants of mankind to their salvation from the cylon onslaught. But there was a hitch some of us were toasters. Whose soul intention was to stop us escaping and see the end of humanity.
There wasn’t many accusations flying around, or people being thrown into the brig. I think it happened just the once from a card effect near the end to Monia. However many a jokey comment was made through out the game, such as “well a cylon would say that” or “just what a cylon would say”.
Once you get used to the turn structure, which happens very quickly, the game hits a flow.
But why was that person checking something in the rule book? Was that the cylon pages? Why isn’t the President playing more quorum cards? Everything a player does comes under scrutiny. Oh the suspicion.
I did find it frustrating at times having to wait for my turn sometimes. As Starbuck I was deadly in space piloting a viper. Especially with the aid of some of the pilot cards, which gave me four attacks at a time. Add that to the characters ability of getting an additional action if they are flying a viper at the start of my turn. So I was the ideal one to be out in space shooting up toasters. But timing just made it hard on a couple of occasions for me to do anything, because I had a full round of turns to wait out before I could jump into action.
All the characters felt different. From drawing different skills cards, different once a game ability, to different abilities.
Sadly with the finish line so close, the hidden toasters were triumphant.
It turns out Diego was married to a toaster, and Jeff proved there was no honour amongst kitchen appliances, when he admitted after revealing himself that he had been trying to deflect the accusations/suspicion onto Monia, who had towards the end been given the nickname by me of “Mrs Toaster”.
Nath and I had a great time playing the game. As did the others, well they said they had. Now the only problem is arranging getting the game back to the table.
The nice thing about The Luxe cinema (apart from my spot, and the great customer service) is that if you have to sit in the front row as Nath and I had to yesterday (the front row seats were the only ones left when we booked our tickets), is the screen is not so large it’s overwhelming to watch the movie.
We had gone to see Mr Nolan’s latest cinematic offering Dunkirk. The nice thing about his movies is that he treats you like an intelligent person and doesn’t hire Sir Anthony ‘needs the money because he’s fallen on hard times so will do any old tripe’ Hopkins to do plot exposition.
Dunkirk for me is one of those movies that goes up against the classic ensemble war movies like The Longest Day or A Bridge Too Far. These types of movies don’t have any character back story, there is no real character development, you are getting snippets of a story from several points of view.
How does it compare with the classics? Very well I think. Obviously movie making techniques have advanced over the decades, from visual effects to story structure. The use of a modern structure works, especially seeing the same event from several points of view.
Nath and I both enjoyed the movie.
Nath was going to join us for the weekly gaming session. However the theme (despite being virtually none existent) of Lords of Waterdeep didn’t really appeal to him. So Nath stayed at home to play Uncharted 2 on the PS3.
Which meant Jeff, Chris and I were left to compete to be the Lord of Waterdeep. We were playing with the base game plus the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion. It was all in on the expansion front because we were using both the Undermountain expansion and the Skullport expansion with its corruption mechanic, that make up the complete expansion.
I really should have picked the lord that gave me end points for buildings owned. Instead I went for the one that allowed me to chose the quest type I wanted to score, and then get 6 points for each completed quest. But at the time it was the right decision.
It’s just a shame I had lots of buildings under my control by the end of the game. It’s not something I do much of while playing Waterdeep. But a combo of two quests got me all the buildings not built for free, plus I got extra victory points for each building because of a previously completed quest. That was a massive round for me.
Jeff was just collecting corruption as if it was going out of fashion. Chris had a system going that allowed him to discard corruption from his tavern.
After final scoring Chris won by a nose, beating Jeff into second place. While I was not far behind in last place.
We had a blast playing Lords of Waterdeep with the expansion. In fact Jeff wasn’t a fan of just the base game, but with the expansion he quite liked it. That’s a massive win.
