Category Archives: Fenland Gamers

Fenland Gamers

Dragonslayers

Fenland Gamers, Game day

SPOILER ALERT! This post may or may not contain spoilers for T.I.M.E. Stories A Prophecy of Dragons. 

A week later than planned due to illness hitting our party. But the gang was back together, ready to “quantum leap” it in T.I.M.E. Stories A Prophecy of Dragons. Sadly Jeff our “GM” was too ill to over see affairs. So we were leaping unsupervised.

Like waves smashing against rocks we failed to crack this mission despite five or so runs.

It started so well. We chose our recepticles. I was a wizard. But the usual fantasy tropes were there for choosing.

Like all good D&D adventures our recepticles were gathered in the local inn. It was here that we had a moment of comedic gold. 

In our previous two successful missions the first run through was a fact gathering exercise. Which hopefully leads to a more efficient next attempt, and so on. A plan we were once more utilising for this mission.

As expected time defeated us. But we had a lot of useful information. 

On our second run through I tried a bit of type casting and played the “halfling”. But returned to being a wizard for the remaining attempts.

On one run through we had a Doctor Strange moment! 

There is some stunning art work in this game. I particularly liked the colourful artwork for the Doctor Strange moment.

We had forgotten to bring along anything to make notes with. Note taking has been key to successfully solving and completing the mission. Luckily so far it appeares that our poor memories were good enough.

Based on our selected characters I think we had the optimal route through. But time is sooo tight. Too tight I think. You almost need, no have to, have a perfect run. Which after the fourth, fifth, possible sixth (I can’t remember exactly how many we did, it was more than three, so in troll counting falls under many) time of going through doing the same things, felt draining and demoralising. I think the break between plays is much needed to recharge our batteries.

I liked the addition of magic, and spell casting. Plus the encounters were interesting. 

The other surprise for me was we haven’t hit a puzzle to solve yet! Asylum was the most puzzle based so far. The Marcy Case much less so. But this scenario, no puzzle yet.

So defeated, we have sneaked off to lick our wounds, regroup and recharge. Bring on the rematch!

Half Term FEG@WL

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

The week ended with a longer session than normal of our regular Friday Evening Gaming at The White Lion. It was also a great start to the weekend.

Our gaming started off with (at long last) Mechs vs Minions. 

This game is still getting hype, it’s print runs selling out. And no wonder really £75 plus £5 shipping, its redonkulous value for money. The production value is out of the park. 100 minion minis, all with a wash paint job to bring out details. Four fully painted figures. Custom metal counters, thick cardboard. The list goes on. Oh and the game box is massive and heavy.

The game you may have guessed looks lovely.

We played the tutorial and first mission yesterday.

I liked the tutorial. It was similar to the approach taken by Krosmaster Arena. But better! Plus I believe the different missions will introduce new mission specific rules. You don’t even have had to read anything before hand, open up and just start playing. The tutorial is that good, fun and easy to follow.

Which brings me on to the three rule books we saw, the tutorial, mission one and reference book. All really well written, easy to flow, clear, accessible style. 

I like the use of mission envelops that you open when directed, and containing all you need for that mission, like extra cards etc.

On the first mission it was rather cool making use of the timer for drafting after a certain condition was met. That made sure things didn’t go all ap on which cards to draft. Although you could game it a little!

Really like the drafting, programming element. Taking damage, which can interfere with your programming is a great touch. Plus they put in repair and reorder mechanics. Which balances out the game nicely. 

Oh and being able to boost/power up your cards abilities. Now that is cool. 

We played this game for two hours, and it did not seem that long. The time just flew by.

Yeah this definitely lived up to the hype. It’s a very nice game. Can’t wait to attempt mission two.

After Mechs vs Minions it was nearly time for Diego arriving. So we squeezed in some games of Santorini. I didn’t win any of our three games. But still had a blast. 

I said it wouldn’t be long before Adrenaline was in the collection. It had arrived that morning. So Jonathan and I introduced Diego and Chris to the joys of a fps boardgame! We played the full eight skull game with final frenzy.

It’s just a great, light, fun boardgame. Still learning the weapons. But despite coming last again, I did pull off the kill of the game doing six points of damage to Diego to kill his character.

Oh and the promo chainsaw weapon card may or may not be on its way to me!

Jonathan showed me the new Pandemic the Cure expansions contents. He managed to get it at a more acceptable price of £30 but there is no way the contents (despite being custom dice, and some cards) is worth it’s rrp of £45. Jonathan was right when he said your paying for the Pandemic name. It’s almost like a tax.

A really great game session. Great games, great company, great beverages. Oh and T.I.M.E. Stories the next day. I’m super happy.

Gaming in Wisbech

Fenland Gamers

Just a short post about the gaming group I go to, The Fenland Gamers.

We are a warm, welcoming board gaming group in Wisbech, who play modern hobby board games. Our members have a broad taste in games (I think my little write ups of our sessions show that) and more than happy to play most game types.

Our regular meet ups are:

  • The second Wednesday of each month
  • Friday Evenings at The White Lion

We also have other sessions that get organised for other days. Such as our T.I.M.E. Stories group working through one scenario a month. But we’ve had Saturdays when bigger games like Zombicide, The Others get played. Or like this current half term, and other holiday times (some of us work in education) more gaming sessions get organised.

We are planning to celebrate International Tabletop Day (29th April) and May the Fourth Day (do I really need to say what date this is?) Details are still being finalised but bound to include cake. 

Oh and it’s free to attend! No charge. We are extremely lucky that the venues we play games at don’t charge us. All we ask is that especially the establishments that sell beverages, is that you buy your refreshments from them as a token of appreciation and thanks for letting us use their premises free. 

Plus finally club members get 10% discount at our FLGS The Hobbit Hole in Chatteris.

You can find out more about The Fenland Gamers HERE on Facebook. 

 

Another Train Wreck

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Today was our second half term gaming session.

We started off with a learning game of Dead Men Tell No Tales.

I think this learning game will go down as one of our better train wrecks. 

This pile up wasn’t helped by a poorly written rule book.

The game looks lovely. The little skeleton head pieces are super cool.

But our massive misplay, what a doozie! When placing a new boat tile on the board we weren’t drawing a token each time. By the time we realised there was no way we could have won. So we weren’t finding stuff to fight or treasure to loot.

The question I have to ask myself is “was there enough here to warrant me giving the game a second chance?”

Our second game of the afternoon was on more familiar, well worn (ish) paths. We played a no thrills, no extras game of Viticulture. 

There were two new players and it wasn’t fair to throw the extra stuff at them as well. Get the basics under the belt, then next time we can fly with the larger board etc.

I like that we have managed to get Viticulture to the table twice now this year. It’s such a great game. And along with Scythe easily in my top 5 games I think. Well if I was to ever do like a top whatever games that is. It also shows that problem most gamers have, so many great games, but so little time!

The ending of our game saw me narrowly loose to Chris (a first timer at a meet up).

A great afternoons gaming. Bring on Friday and Mechs vs Minions.

Valentine’s Day Massacre 

Fenland Gamers, Game day

It’s that special commercial holiday Valentine’s Day. So what better way to spend it than spending the afternoon playing Scythe and Kemet.

The day had started well with the taxman sending me a Valentine’s Day letter informing me of my tax code for the upcoming tax year. But I knew that this was their grey taxman way of saying they love me. I’m disappointed there was no romantic dinner arranged to discuss how much tax I could avoid paying. But I guess they are saving those for their high end corporate whores such as Google.

Our first game of the afternoon was my game of 2016, Scythe.

For the first time I was playing a new faction for me, Akiko & Jiro (Togawa Shogunate). Jeff actually had the other new faction Connor & Max (Clan Albion). While young Lucas had my favourite faction, and the only one I’d played to date, Olga Romanova & Changa (Rusviet Union). Diego had Anna & Wojtek (Polania Republic), and Jamie had Gunter von Duisburg with Nacht & Tag (Saxony Empire).

Diego took the early “lead” getting three stars out, and bring first to the factory. I was second to the factory and laid a trap token on it! The traps had a great psychological affect on the others. None of my traps were set of, instead that acted as deterrents and stopped the others trying to take over my territories with them on.

It was interesting that Jeff hardly laid any of his tokens. I think I only remember him placing one. 

I was busy grabbing land, making sure I was going to score lots at the end. The others were not building much, or grabbing lots of territory. Which allowed me to get in a position where I could place two stars on my final go using my factory card ability. My fifth star was completing all my enlistments, and the sixth game ending star was defeating Saxony for my second battle star.

Once the dust had settled, points added, I had won with a comfortable margin. It was my best score ever, and my first ever victory. 

We had played with the board extension. So it was a bloody big board. Which I enjoyed playing on. I enjoyed playing the new faction. It was the first time playing with this player count. I liked it, more was going on. I won’t play it with more players. 

But I won! 

Our next game and final for the afternoon was Kemet. Which with its “attack, attack” philosophy capturing the true spirit of the day.

So we were playing with the C2K expansion adding in the Cyclades monsters. And it was the first time playing with the max of five players.

I’d taken an early victory point lead. But it wasn’t there for long before it was a question of “how could we delay Diego”.

We actually ended up with Diego and Jamie getting eight victory points at the end of a round. But with the tie conditions the victory went to Diego.

Another game I enjoyed as a five player game. It was a lot longer game than our previous play. But then this was more players. The extra monsters from Cyclades were a nice addition, and additional tactical decision whether to buy or not.

A great afternoon of gaming in the spirit of the day. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to try Blood Rage tomorrow.

Gods vs Gods

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

The Friday that launches not just into the weekend but also half term always seems to have a more relaxed feel to it.

At The White Lion Hotel Diego, Jonathan and myself made it along to play games and get our weekend and half term off to a great start.

Our gaming started off with Inis. Inis had a lot of buzz, and the usual dash to get hold of it. 

Let’s deal with the main critism about the game. The dire box art. Which looks more like it came out of a just completed colouring book. Not the most attractive piece of box art.

Inis is quick to pick up. Within two rounds or so you get a good idea for the majority of the rules.

The card drafting works well. Being able to change your draft choices is a nice touch. A small limited pool of cards is also helpful. So you soon know all the cards and start making plans on what you’d like to draft to try and implement your plans.

The combat or clashes as they are called felt weird to start with. But we got used to it. It’s functional, maybe even thematic.

Having three win conditions means you are constantly having to be not just aware of your progress towards them, but also of your opponents.

The area majority mechanic worked well. I liked getting additional cards to play from being a chieftain of an area.

The Epic Tales cards add a nice element and additional option to the game.

I do like the unique look that the tiles have. Plus despite the misdirect of the box cover art, Inis actually looks good on the table.

Inis is a nice game. I’ll definitely play again. But Kemet, Scythe and Cry Havoc are easily better in my opinion. 

Our second game was Santorini. Every since getting Santorini it’s been burning a hole on my table. I’ve really wanted to get it to the table to play. 

They claim on the box it’s a 2-4 player game. But 4 player seems tacked on as a team mode. It’s really a 2 player abstract game. But I was curious how it would play as a 3 player game.

This is a super simple game to learn. Choose one of your two pieces, move it, and build. That’s basically it. Get one of your pieces to level 3 of a building and you win. Oh when going up, you can only go up one level at a time. Can’t make a move, you lose. 

But despite being so simple, there is a depth to the game. It’s almost chess like at times.

Ok I’m stating the obvious but Santorini looks beautiful. The whole 3D look of the buildings as you build, and board. Stunning. I can’t think of an abstract game I have or seen (although this is very limited knowledge) that looks this gorgeous.

The production value throughout the whole game is really high. Plus with this Kickstarter Zeus edition that I have the little extras are really nice.

We played two games of the basic rules. Then mixed it up playing with beginner God cards. Which add an extra layer to the game that makes it even better. The God cards give you a special power to use during the game or in case of the one Jonathan had win condition. These were a really fun addition.

There are a lot of God cards, thirty or so in the base game. Then with the Golden Fleece expansion even more, plus Hero cards. So there is a hell of a lot of replayability and variety to be had with this game.

We had a blast playing Santorini. Even when we lost we were laughing and smiling. I want to say this game is an absolute delight to play. This will be back to the table real quick. Instant classic for me.

Hey it was Friday, we played games, you know how this story ends. With poor diet decisions disguised as a stuffed naan wrap with questionable meat, salad and chilli sauce.

Monthly Meetup – February

Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

I was looking forward to our monthly meetup. Gavin and I had arranged before hand for him to bring his copy of Adrenaline along for us to play.

Adrenaline was getting a lot of buzz at the end of last year. “If you like video games, you’ll love this. It’s a fps but in cardboard” was being thrown around by fans of the game.

Would it live up to the hype? Would Jonathan like the game, despite its theme?

You know I don’t do reviews. Nearest I come to it is me saying what I like and maybe dislike about a game. 

We were playing a four player, six kill game.

It’s a quick game to pick up. On your turn choose two of the following actions: move up to three spaces, move a space and pick up, or fire a weapon. The simplicity of options is what allows it to be picked up quickly. And also reproduce the basic actions of a fps and give it that video game feel.

Line of sight is pretty simple, and fits thematically to the whole fps theme.

The ammo, and ammo types, in conjunction with the weapon cards, spawn points, reloading, etc ooze fps.

And that’s what I love about the game. The mechanics and theme fit like a glove.

Then throw on top of that a majority mechanic on the damage inflicted on opponents when deciding points upon a players death. Genius. 

Plus they worked in a mechanic to discourage everyone just killing the same person all the time.

Everything flows, you have to be aware of the other players damage. Which reminds me the more damage you take the more powerful some of your actions become! Oh and you can overkill.

Because this was a first play we were having to refer to the rule book for details on what individual weapons did. But you soon pick up the iconography.

I really liked to. With different variants, four combinations of the game boards, I think there is a bit of replay ability in this game. It’s light and fun. I don’t think it will be long before this is in my collection and being introduced to Nath, and my students.

Oh and Jonathan liked the game too, despite its theme. That had to be a big thumbs up in anyone’s book.

Our second and final game of the evening was Takenoko.

What a difference playing the game correctly makes!!

Yes our previous play had us playing it with a major foobar! And left us puzzled about the game.

I did enjoy this play through much much more. So much so it will stay in the collection.

Sadly the official records will show through some trickery Jonathan won both games! Which included a late points rush in Takenoko to steal the win from me.

I enjoyed the meet up, same time next month?

Wrath hits Wisbech!

Fenland Gamers, Game day, Uncategorized

It’s a good job I checked how many were attending the planned “Sinning again” event for The Fenland Gamers yesterday before heading off to it.

I thought it was just going to be Diego and myself. So had packed just 7 Wonders Duel with the Pantheon expansion, Hero Realms and newly arrived that morning Inis. 

However Will and Lucia had signed up also within the previous 24 hours. Which was a pleasant surprise, because our planned play was for them and Diego when I created the event the previous weekend.

So I quickly unpacked and threw in everything I had for The Others. 

Having everything with me allowed Diego, Will and Lucia to choose which pre-constructed team they played with.

They choose to go with The Sons of Ragnarok. A play on The Sons of Anarchy but using Norse Gods in biker outfits!


As the sin player I went with Wrath and he was backed up with Corrupted Doctors as his acolytes.

We went with a terror story called Haven in Flames. In this scenario there were no corruption checks, but lots of checks against damage by fire.

Once more as the sin I was victorious. But I was wondering about the scenario. It wasn’t until the last objective that I started to claw back into the game by stacking up the bodies of the heroes.

Having Wrath in a district with abominations and acolytes did make it very hard for the heroes to complete the final mission. I was rolling 14 plus dice in any fight. I used a similar tactic the previous game. I’m not sure how you stop this, and get a win for the heroes. At the moment this allows me to pick off heroes one at a time as they enter. 

Diego identified a mistake from their side in not playing their team correctly. I don’t think they were using their abilities to their fullest. 

But I also thought that this story unlike the previous one didn’t give the heroes much equipment. 

Playing as the sin is fun, and allows you as the sin player to ham things up a little. Letting out the odd evil chuckle or “muhaha” just as you play a sin card. Near the end the odd playful “I smell blood” before reacting helps lighten things up.

Having said that I do want to play as a hero next time. 

I do feel we still have a lot to explore with The Others. We have the different story types, different teams to try, different sins, team construction, Dark past cards.

So here is to the next chance to sin in Wisbech!

Trolololol Eric Summerer

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

Yesterday for work I got to go to the BETT Show at the Excel place in London with my colleague and friend Dale.

Basically under the disguise of being an education show aimed at teachers etc, it is in reality a hunt for loot on the bosses dime! Yep real life Munchkin. 

I’m pretty happy with my haul of loot. Free pens are great for bribing colleagues. Well technically I’m not bribing them I’m buying their souls very cheaply. I’m not sure they realise the real cost of my “generosity”.

Didn’t have to buy coffee during the day because we managed score free coffee from a stand. It was pretty good coffee. They actually had a hipster looking barista there making it to order. Unlike a lot of the others that did coffee that were using those pod coffee machines.

Dale got to witness how slow a striking king cobra snake is compared to me eating a chocolate covered mini ring donut from a chocolate fountain.

All in all a great first BETT for me, with many plans on spending my line managers budget in the next week or two.

It was seven when I finally arrived at The White Lion. Jonathan and Diego were two or three turns into The Streets of Commonville.

While trying to solve the crime, there were plenty of opportunities to have banter. Especially at the expense of Jonathan (who is fifty percent of the games design team!) 

Like Jonathan I too was a little rusty on the games rules. Last time I played the game as “Darren Consulting Game Tester” was in February of last year. While for Jonathan it was June of 2016. Which opened up the opportunity for lines like “did you not watch the Watch It Played video?” Or “Eric Lang knows how to play his games”.

 Jonathan tried to misdirected us from his Dr Kinky alter ego in the game. But in the end the evidence clearly pointed to Dr Kinky being the guilty party.


We managed to arrest Dr Kinky with a minute or two left. 

The idea came up of adding Eric Summerer as a promo character to the game. Maybe as a new cop to be played and have a matching suspect tile of Eric Summerer the dirty cop.

A great day out, a fun evening gaming. The weekend started well.

Hard Decisions in Ancient Italy

Fenland Gamers, game night

Starting the week with a gaming session, is a great way to start. Jonathan played host Diego and myself for a three player game of Concordia.

I have to say this was a far more pleasurable experience. Especially now that we knew how to play it and all about the end game scoring.

There was a perverse pleasure watching Jonathan struggle with inner turmoil over his next move, or the realisation that he’d just made a mistake.

I do think this game is prone to the ol’ analysis paralysis. Which does slow things down a little. But still our three player game took just over two hours. 

Although I lost to Diego by three points, I beat Jonathan by the slimmest of margins. Thus I too was a winner!

I’m glad we played Concordia again. There was enough there in our first play that warranted the second play. For me think my favourite mechanic is the deck building side of it.