Category Archives: Game day

All Hail Emperor Jeff

Game day

Certain things have a repetition for being taking a long time, such as a John Bonham drum solo (younger sufferers go google this guy, listen to his stuff, sit back and be amazed at the greatest drummer ever, and group of all time). Another such thing is Twilight Imperium 3.

Yesterday 6 wanna be rulers of the known universe gathered to scheme, plot, betray, bargain, manipulate, and outright attack their way to victory. How were they going to do this? By playing Jeff’s Twilight Imperium 3 with a few of the expansions thrown in.

Sufferer’s will remember I’ve only played the fourth edition, which I got last Winter, and miraculously have got to the table 3 times since buying it (which is really good going).

I’m not going to bore you with turn by turn plays. I’m not that cruel.

Jeff had everything setup by the time everyone had arrived. Jeff had selected expansions we’d be using, tailored the races available to balance out the game to cater for experienced and novice players, and the expansions being used. The action cards were also tailored to fit in with the expansions etc. All that was left to do was chose race, colour and seating position.

The map set up of 3 small galaxies for the known universe was pretty cool. The smaller middle galaxy had Mecatol Rex in the middle, while the other 2 galaxies had 3 players and their home worlds each. Movement between galaxies was with warp gates.

I think it was round 3 of the game, over in the other galaxy red was looking like getting out of control. And for us over in the other galaxy very scary, and likely targets for their aggressive expansionist ways sooner rather than later.

So when the politics action came up, I had the perfect card to vote on. It basically gutted reds fleet and didn’t affect the rest of us. Mainly because our fleets at that point were mainly carriers, with the odd cruiser/destroyer. Sadly red was mainly the latter ships. Luckily I was selected for my politics cards, after some bargaining (which saw me outbid red with Jeff for his votes, and allowing Jeff needing one less victory point to win), the vote was won, and the red fleet was gutted. I then played a card that got me an extra destroyer to rub salt into reds wounds. In retaliation red attack me (a carrier ship) in the middle galaxy with a single cruiser. They took each other out. Which was funny I didn’t mind losing the carrier, but losing another cruiser was more salt in reds wounds. He was not a happy bunny. This round had not been a good round for them. At that moment of the game I was happy, I didn’t care if I lost, I’d done something pretty cool/big in the game. Anything else from now on was gravy.

There is a picture above where red is looking a bit salty over their recent losses.

At the end of round 4, play stopped for burgers and hot dogs. The perfect fuel for wanna be rulers of the known galaxy.

Hostilities resumed on full stomachs. Apparently red was still hurting from their wing clipping before lunch, but was also adding to their list of payback. Luckily the others on the list were more local to them (same galaxy) and therefore higher on the list than me.

Apart from the skirmish above, and some skirmishes during the last round there was no battles between the 2 galaxies. Most of the exchanges took place in their respective galaxies between the empires there.

Towards the end it transpired that Jeff only needed 12 victory points thanks to taking bribes for his votes earlier in the game. I’d achieved my other game objective, get my flagship out by then.

The final round was spent trying to stop Jeff claiming that last victory point. Despite some valiant attempts our efforts were in vain, and Jeff was able to claim his final victory point and declare himself Emperor of the Known Universe.

Thanks to Jeff and an implied permission by his sharing the photo on Facebook, there is a photo of me looking wild and all dwarf like.


This was a really fun, long day. Great game, great opponents, great food, it was a blast.

Some final brief thoughts on TI:3 especially in comparison to TI:4. I enjoyed TI:3. I think I lean towards favouring TI:4. I prefer the streamlining, the way politics are integrated into the game once Mecatol Rex has been occupied. There is more reason to take Mecatol Rex in the newer edition. For starters it is worth a victory point. In our game of TI:3 no one took Mecatol Rex, it was left alone. I did like the artifacts from one of the expansions in TI:3, along with one or two of the others we got to use. Such as the tokens on the board that were turned over when you entered the system, which could be good or bad. Maybe we will see them as an expansion for TI:4 at some point. The leaders I didn’t use. Although Jeff and a couple of others did. Not sure about this one.

Our game from arrival to clear up with the food break, was around 9 hours! Ok that was 6 of us, with a few expansions mixed in. But the TI:4 plays (4 and 5 player counts) have at most been around the 6 hour mark. So the streamlining done by FFG between editions has made a big difference in play time.

A great day, great gaming memories.

I promise you this

Game day, magic, MtG

that when my horrors from the deep Commander deck is complete and it hits the table in anger, I will be meming the heck out of it. Especially with stuff like the following…


Yesterday I ended up in Huntingdon library playing 1v1 Commander. Not my favourite way to play Commander, it’s missing the political element. But still it was fun and gave me a chance to try a couple of the new 2018 Commander decks, and also give my Wizards and mono red decks a spin.

The two 2018 decks I sleeved up to play with were the Lord Windgrace – lands matter “Nature’s Vengence” and Estrid, the Masked – “Adaptive Enchantments” decks.


I played these decks against Bob’s unsleeved Saheeli, the Gifted – artifacts “Exquisite Invention” deck that I had picked up for him the same time I picked up my decks.

Our first game saw Windgrace square up against Saheeli, and stomp his way to victory. Estrid was up next and did ok, but got her butt handed to her and lost.

We then took our own decks for a spin. I look at my Wizards deck and think “what’s the win condition?” One of the games Bob had me milling the top 3 cards of my deck at the start of his upkeep. He needed lands. But I didn’t mind the milling, with Kess’s ability, and other cards I had, milling was not an issue for me. I could still play the spells.

I stole creatures from Bob, frustrated him with counter spells, took extra turns, basically abused the blue side of the deck, and won both games with it.

Mono red (now with a foil Etali) did its thing in it’s first game, and fought its way to victory with multiple combat rounds and doubling up its damage at the right moment. The second game saw it going up against a black aggro deck.

That game was swinging in Bob’s favour especially after his Chainer’s Torment hit the third age and created a 21/21 Nightmare Horror token. I had one creature on the battlefield, it wasn’t looking good. A matter of a couple of turns at most before I was toast.


But then on my turn after that monster token was created I top decked a Captivating Crew. I checked my mana, double checked, and then triple checked it. I had enough to not only cast the card but to also pay for its activated ability. So that’s what I did. I took control of the 21/21 and swung in for the win. Phew what a blooming top deck. I think I had 2 other cards that allowed me to steal a creature(s) for a turn. I have to admit before I drew the card, I had no clue how I was going to get out of the situation, and was hoping to delay things long enough to think of a solution.

Our final game was back to the 2018 decks. Lord Windgrace once more squared up against Saheeli. The Saheeli deck failed to get any real creature presence on the battlefield, so my deck was able to get swinging without taking any repercussions. I don’t think I took any damage in this game before getting the win.

I think the 1v1 format did favour my Wizards deck in those 2 games. But this 1v1 format in no way means that the decks are really good, I just had better draw than Bob. It’s fun, you still get to play those cards you couldn’t in formats like modern or standard. But part of the fun for me in Commander is the social/political side.

Ok what did I think of the two new 2018 decks I played? They were fun. Lord Windgrace is really easy to pilot. Estrid less so in comparison. So if I was a noob to Commander and MtG I’d probably get Lord Windgrace. I have to admit I’m not overly sold on the Planeswalkers themselves. They seem a little underwhelming. Especially the ultimates. Take Lord Windgrace I could see him fitting in with the Muldrotha deck with his +2 and -3 abilities. Don’t think I’d ever ultimate him.

The decks do seem missing some good reprints that would enhance them. Lord Windgrace is screaming for Crucible of Worlds and Scapeshift. Why Sensei’s Divining Top isn’t in the top of the deck matters deck I don’t know.

And those are reprints that could have, no should have been in these decks that I can think of off the top of my head (with my limited knowledge of cards). Especially considering the increased cost of the decks.

I don’t think there is one deck in particular so far that I would like to upgrade and play, like I did with the 2017 Wizards and Dragons decks. There are some cards I’d like to use in other decks, some existing ones, some in the planning stage.

The themes I like a lot. And the deck builder side of me would like to take the themes and build decks around them. Not sure more than a handful of cards from these decks would make it in to any new deck built round the themes.

As I said these are fun to play. I don’t think as the decks stand warrant the price increase. They stink a little of WotC price gauging a popular product. Compared to the other Commander precons I’ve played/own (2017, and both Anthologies) if I had to buy a Commander deck tomorrow I’d be going with one of the 2017 decks first if I could get it for rrp.

I’m really proud that my ex-students have continued to play MtG since I left, and now have this regular Saturday event at Huntingdon Library going on.

Brains!

Game day, magic, MtG

Starting todays post with a photo Jonathan took with his latest geeky toy during our Costa coffee gaming session. Which just so happens will see him life casting pretty soon. Once we have gaffer taped the GoPro clone to the side of his head.

I am seriously rocking that dwarven Lord of the Rings/Dungeon and Dragons look. I hope Amazon are taking note here and cast me at least as a dwarf extra in their Lord of the Rings tv series.

Yesterday I got a chance to take 4 of my Commander decks out for a spin. It was long overdue, I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms.

The first of my decks hitting the table was my Angel deck. Sadly I had to mulligan down to 5 cards, and still I was borderline being mana screwed for the game. Not surprisingly I didn’t win.

The second game saw big green stompy pound the table. Although none of my ramp cards surfaced, it still managed to throw its weight around, stompying all before it.


As the above photo shows certain creatures can get rather silly if they are not handled. It won’t surprise you dear sufferers that this deck crushed its way to victory.

Our third game the Scarab God and his zombie horde rose to the table. Although the Scarab God didn’t win, I was happy he did his thing.

Game 4 saw me actually get to play the Atraxa precon (with a doubling season in it as the only change). This was the first time since getting the deck in the second Anthology that I’d played the deck. Although the deck had been played by others. Another game that I didn’t win. But it did take an early dominant position, which if it had killed one of my opponents would have probably gone on to win. Instead in a rare moment of weakness I showed mercy and paid for it later. I did enjoy playing the deck. It fired it’s thing off. I think I’ve said in an old post I don’t mind losing. If I’ve had fun, the deck has done what it’s designed to do, winning is just gravy on top.

Our fifth game saw the Angels descend from the heavens once more. It wasn’t exactly a heavenly host, but I had 3 angels out (1 of them my Commander) thanks to me hitting my land drops. My opponents were struggling for land. That was enough of window for them to do their life linked damage. I was felling pretty happy with the board state, with the cards in hand. I could control the game. My health was ridiculous, the only thing I’d have to worry about was Commander damage possibly. And I did take 8 points of it. Before turning all their creatures into 1/1 creatures with no abilities. Naturally the angels flew to victory.

“He has risen, for he is the Scarab God!” Yes our sixth and final game of the day saw the undead once more shambling over the Earth. The Scarab God was out with a couple of zombies early on, kicking off his ability each turn. A board wipe put an end to that. One of the other players managed to ultimate his Ajani Planeswalker, and had an emblem that gave him 3 1/1 cat tokens at the end of each turn. That needed dealing with somehow, otherwise it could get out of hand fast. Between myself and the third player we controlled the cat token spam. But I needed a more permanent answer. I think for the first time ever with the Scarab God I used his activated ability to get me a couple of zombies from my opponents graveyards. I then played the enchantment that gave me zombies tokens at the start of my upkeep. That should if kept on the board allow me to keep pace with the cat tokens. Luckily I got to determine the order of the upkeep triggers. Always zombie tokens first, then the Scarab Gods ability. I get to do more damage that way, and scry more. I didn’t need to attack, just generate zombies somehow. The Scarab God would do the rest. And he did. He took out the cat token spamming player. Then a couple of turns later with 26 zombies in one form or another on the table killed the remaining player. The zombie horde of the Scarab God won the day.

Out of 6 games I won 3. They were great fun. Even the ones I lost. A great day of Commander.

Rolling and a writing in Costa

coffee shop gaming, Game day

This afternoon Jonathan met up at our local Costa to play some roll and write games.

After getting our beverages (no frills hot chocolate for Jonathan, and a caramel cortado for me) we sat down to play some games.

Roll and write although not a large part of our collections, is a genre that we both enjoy. Although I don’t actually remember playing Yahtzee, but that is probably the most famous of all roll and writes, and most widely known. The basic mechanic of this genre is you roll a number of dice, and then do something with the result of those dice, usually writing the result down. Hence roll and write.

We started off the afternoon of chucking dice with learning Qwinto. Which was then followed by Rolling America, and finishing the afternoon off with Qwixx. The rules are complicated. On your turn you roll 1,2 or 3 dice, and you get one reroll. If you use the reroll you reroll all the dice you rolled that turn. No saving dice here. The resulting sum of the dice you rolled is then recorded on your sheet in a row of your choosing that matches one of the coloured dice that you rolled. When writing a number down the rules you have to remember are that on a row from left to right the numbers have to be ascending. And in columns you can’t have a number more than once. The game ends when either 2 rows have been completed or a player has 4 marks indicating that they were unable to use the dice on a turn.

It’s a nice light, quick roll and write. Deciding how many dice to roll and which colours is a nice touch. There is a little denial you can do with that, depending on what colours and numbers the other players are after. Yeah a keeper.

We played Qwinto a couple of times and shared the victories one a piece.


Rolling America hadn’t been to the table for a long time for me, and this was a first play for Jonathan. Compared to the other 2 games we played this afternoon this is more of a puzzle, thinky roll and write. And is playable as a solo game straight out of the box. It feels completely different to the other 2 games we played because of that. I took the honours with our play of this game.

We finished off the gaming with a long overdue return to the table of Qwixx. It’s still a very nice game. Plus there is a great app version of the game now days. However Jonathan took the win.

These are 3 great filler games. Fairly quick to play. Perfect for these coffee shop gaming sessions.

It was kinda fitting that after a great afternoon gaming we shared the victories evenly.

Core set 2019 Prerelease Event

Game day, magic, MtG

This weekend is Core 19 Prerelease weekend. That magical time for Magic players where they get to play with the cards from the newest set a week early. And thanks once more to the benevolence of our overlords WotC, store owners were also allowed to sell to eager players like myself a whole week early booster boxes (with while supplies lasted the second, more controversial buy-a-box promo).

I think WotC must had arranged this Prerelease weekend specifically for me. That, or it’s just pure coincidence that it coincides with The Rose Fair. An annual event in my home town, that sees lorries driving really slowly round the town with their trailers poorly decorated around a theme, and occupied with people that have even less of a life than myself. I think the technical term for these is floats. It’s such a massive inconvenience, but it brings in trade to the town I suppose.

Without the Prerelease I’d have been stuck at home, having to suffer The Rose Fair and hot weather. Instead I got to leave early so I wasn’t trapped in my idea of hell, and make my way to my FLGS ready to play some Magic.

Naturally I was early, so the FLGS wasn’t open. While waiting for it to open some of my ex-students turned up. They too were there for the Prerelease and hopefully get a game of Commander in.

While waiting for the Prerelease to start, I cracked open one of my booster boxes. As did one or two of my ex-students who had also bought a booster box. I won’t bore you here with what I pulled but there will be a short YouTube video up in the next couple of days with the highlights. But I will say this was super fun, cracking packs, seeing what others had got. I liked the social aspect of it.

It was time to open our Prerelease kits and start building a deck. I got a blue life countdown die, my promo wasn’t great. I did get a second crucible of worlds, but more importantly for this sort of event I got cards I could build a deck with. Or I thought I had. I went black/red with a little bit of graveyard shenanigans. Found out a bit later that there was a foil Nicol Bolas pulled. Sweet.

My first game was against a returning player to Magic Lauren. Her deck was good, which her final position of second, and zero losses proved. Losing 1-2 to her was not bad. I know one or two (which included an ex-student) got wiped out 2-0. So winning a game was an achievement. I was happy because I got to play crucible of worlds, played some lands from my graveyard, pulled some creatures back from the graveyard (well until Lauren kindly exiled my graveyard). It was doing its thing.

My next game was against Grant. I’d played against Grant at a previous Prerelease. I won that match up. History was not to repeat itself. This time Grant won 1-2.
I have to say I really enjoy playing against Grant. There is friendly banter, a laugh and joke. Actually it was the same with Lauren as well. Sometimes there are people you don’t like playing against because they are not fun. They take it way too serious, or lack that social interaction skill (who knew Magic players with poor social skills?) But Grant and Lauren I’d gladly play against any day.

Lauren even joined in the banter against an ex-student, and totally crushed him in their game.

My third match was against Charlie, who I beat 2-1. Our first game I won due to a massive misplay by Charlie that gave me the win. He then redeemed himself by taking the next game. I was able to take the tie breaker in a closely fought third game.

Throughout the day between rounds, it was “how’d you do?”, or checking out how others were doing if they were still playing. And being the supportive friends encouraging their opponent to smash them.

Before the final round an ex-student and I pitched our Prerelease decks against each other seeing as we hadn’t been drawn against each other. That ended in a win each.

I didn’t get a fourth round game because some players had left without saying anything to the organisers to go watch I’m assuming the England match. So the person I was matched up with was awol for possibly the reason I’d given. Which meant I had a buy. I’ll take a win anyway I can.

That meant I finished 12th out of 26. Which is respectable. But more importantly I finished above my ex-students.

After opening our 2 participation packs, we sat down for a game of Commander.

Charlie hadn’t played with us before, so wasn’t aware of our social contract. The social contract we came up with, and is one used also with the Fenland Gamers MtG group is in Commander, no mass land destruction, no going infinite. These two things are not fun. It’s why I have 2 versions of my mono red deck. The mass land destruction version doesn’t get played. Only time it has was when my ex-students allowed my to test playing the deck while I was building it. My mono red can do multiple combat phases, at most a couple, it can’t do them infinitely. I’ve deliberately not even looked into going infinite.

Charlie had a couple of cards that destroyed all permanents. He had to fire one of them off to stop another player. It was basically a game restart. It wasn’t fun, and basically handed the game to the player who Charlie was trying to stop. But up until that point my big green stompy had been doing its thing. Building up a threat, being annoying.

Game 2 was a rushed affair really. Which saw me lose the game in a game of rock, paper, scissors that we used to decide the winner between the final 2 of us left in the game.

Thanks to John the owner of my FLGS The Hobbit Hole you get the chance (some may even call it lucky) to see me in action as third Magic player at the back!

It really was a great Prerelease. Everyone was having fun, lots of smiles on people’s faces as they played. I played Magic with some fun people. It was really cool meeting up with my ex-students, and getting to the chance to play some Magic with some of them. Yeah this was probably my best Prerelease to-date. An amazing day.

Against the odds

Game day, magic, MtG

On a hot day like today there is only one thing to do. Yep spend the day indoors playing MtG. Not only was it Open House at my FLGS, but it was also holding a PPTQ or Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier for the more serious and competitive MtG player (hence why I wasn’t taking part, I’m rarely serious about anything).

I hit Chatteris just about the right time. Any later and I’d have been caught up in the town fete/parade that sees the high street closed and makes getting to the car park at the back of the store impossible until it’s over. I must remember it’s Wisbech’s turn next week to be this annoying.

In side the buzzing FLGS I quickly grabbed some of my favourite card sleeves (Dragon Shields Matt) to sleeve up the remaining 3 decks in the Second Commander Anthology. I also succumbed to buying 3 boosters from Conspiracy 2. They would have been from BattleBond if there had been any left. But apparently they sold out at FNM.

The hardest choice at an Open House for me is which pack to go for. In an ideal greedy world I’d have one each of the red, black and green decks. But we don’t live in that world, so I had to make a choice. So I decided to go big green stompy.

I think with the 2 new how to play cards in the Welcome packs, WotC have knocked it out of the park. I think these are a big improvement over the folding leaflet that was in the old ones.

I’m really glad I went with green. Look at these 2 lovely big green creatures plus there was a Colossal Dreadmaw. I just want to start building a big green stompy Commander deck. I love the art on Loxodon Line Breaker. The flavour text is so me too.

The white side of the Welcome deck really made me happy, 2 new angels that could be used in my Angel Tribal Commander deck. Which I happened to have with me. Plus Take Vengeance whose art is graphically thematic for the deck.

My first couple of games with my Welcome deck were against an ex-student. It was my green/white deck against his blue/red deck. Both games that we played I felt that I made a good flying start, but ran out of steam. Unable to make the allusive killing blow to get a win.

My third game was against the nephew of a store regular. I thought it was going to be a mirror match up. But it wasn’t he had green but instead of white had red. It was a match up that once again saw me get close but unable to get over the finishing line. We traded blows, except my opponent was able to land more of them than I was.

My final game to qualify for the promo was against the uncle who had blue/white. This time it wasn’t my deck that was misfiring. But unlike the previous 3 games I was able to deliver the finishing blow and grab that all important win to avoid a complete whitewash.

After claiming our reward for having a good time playing MtG, my ex-student and I caught up, and talked decks.

We took part in a 5 player game of Commander. One of the 5 was Mr McSalty from last week. He started to get a bit salty again when I destroyed his artifact that gave him unlimited hand size. Couldn’t have that, even if the nephew (playing a super powered up version of the Dragon 2017 Commander Deck) did have some also attractive targets.

The uncle then played an enchantment that was a slow painful death for us all. Basically on our end step we drew a card, and took 2 damage. Then with his consecrated Sphinx started to mill me. Well I was mono white. Out came a creature that every time we drew a card we lost a life. Yeah the uncle was developing a board state that didn’t require him to attack, just sit back and let us die playing the game. It hurt even more when I had to discard my hand with a Fumigate and another board wipe in it, to then draw 7 new cards. Oh and take 7 damage. But this was hitting all of us.

Dragons were getting out of control. And single shot killed McSalty. My and my ex-students health was getting low. But we were hanging in there.

After the uncle reset the nephews board state to zero creatures, my ex-student swung in and killed the uncle. Lifelink was starting to push my health back up. The nephew swung in at me, but I chump blocked with some angels, got more health back. Then I hit back, more health. I was out of single hit range. My ex-student took out the nephew, leaving me the chance to swing in and kill him for the really unexpected win.

How I won this I don’t know. It was a shocking victory.

Naturally I picked up my order of the 5 Planeswalker decks. So along with the cards from the welcome deck, I have also opened my first packs from Core Set 19.

These are the pulls from the booster that came with the Sarkhan Planeswalker deck.

It even had a foil basic land.

I’ll share the other pull highlights in another post.

I had a great time at the Open House. Really enjoyed myself. Looking forward to next weekends pre-release event.

Sunday Commanderin

Commander, Game day, magic, MtG

Sunday saw some 40k players taking part in a tournament over at Chatteris.

Luckily there was enough space for not only these miniature gamers but also other gaming like MtG and board games. So an invite was issued for others to come and make use of it.

My FLGS The Hobbit Hole was holding a MtG Standard Showdown, some of us had turned up to play Commander, other general board gaming.

With a failed attempt (once again) to organise a Commander session the previous day to play the new Anthology. I had decided to use the opportunity to play on Sunday to pick up my 2 copies.

When I arrived there was already a Commander game running using a couple of the new reprinted decks. The Atraxa deck being played had a Doubling Season added to it. So while that was going on I picked up my order and opened one up. I then immediately started sleeving the Atraxa deck. This is a deck I really wanted to play. For me it was almost at a mythic/legendary status because of its high cost to buy since coming out in 2016.

In the game currently running, the Atraxa deck was doing it’s thing. However I wish I was paying attention to what the other deck was from the Anthology being played was, because that was the one that ended up victorious.

I really like the presentation of the Anthology set. The only drawback I can think off is instead of the little included leaflet that is more flavour text for the deck than helpful, is a little bit about the tactics, how to play the deck for newer players. A “it would be nice to have” for these anthologies (this includes both sets) is the giant version of the Commander cards that come with the Commander decks when they were sold separately (I’m assuming that the older decks had these).

While the Standard Showdown was going on, 3 of us played Commander. I played my Dinosaur Tribal deck that now had Helm of the Host in it. Sam, John’s daughter played my Atraxa deck, and our third player was playing a Meren deck and all that graveyard shenanigans.

Sadly for the Meren player they were not really allowed to get the graveyard shenanigans going. I was forced by them to do an earlier than planned exiling of graveyards when they went to destroy my Silent Gravestone. But after that the Atraxa deck was exiling cards at will with one of their cards where they spend a swamp to exile a card from a graveyard, and if it’s a creature get a +1/+1 counter. Both our graveyards were hit that way.

I was starting to get a commanding board state, Rampaging Fericidon, and Gishath were out amongst others. Then bam, board wipe. But I was able to rebuild. Bought out my Commander, then Etali came out. I drew into Helm of the Hosts, and after my thinking, equipped Etali with it. Which with a kindred charge played, meant for one turn I was attacking with 3 Etali. Yes just think about that. That turn I killed the Meren player. Next turn Atraxa went down.

My deck had clicked. The Atraxa deck looks a lot of fun and I can’t wait to play it, both the standard unchanged deck, and a modified one. Yes I’m going to do the $20 budget upgrade from mtggoldfish as my starting point.

Sadly I wasn’t able to stick around for a second game of Commander, I made a poor judgement call earlier in the day. If I’d picked up the cat litter on my way out of town I’d have been able to play on. Sadly I didn’t think of that at the time, or I did and was too lazy. But the end result was I needed to hit the pet shop before it shut.

A big thanks to the 40K players for opening up the event to none players to use as well. Had a great afternoon.

Jonathan thinks like me

coffee shop gaming, Fenland Gamers, Game day

This afternoon was spent at the local Costa in the company of Jonathan enjoying a game or two of Azul. Which Jonathan edged a win over of 3-2. We still haven’t played the game with more than 2 players, but we both love it as a 2 player game. Hence why we rattled off 5 games in a row.


After the enjoyable games of Azul. I got to try The Mind. Wow. This game is probably unlike any other game you have played before. It’s so simple, yet so complex. It worked well with 2 players, and will be interesting to see how it plays at the higher counts. I can see the game being heavily dependent on the people you play it with. Particularly I’m not sure I’d play it with none gamers who may not get it. If the box was a bit deeper you could sleeve the cards. Which if I owned the game I’d want to do. However it will only fit the cards without sleeves. A little oversight, but the publisher isn’t the first or last to do this.

Oh for the record the Costa cold brew isn’t as good as mine.

Jeff earns Avenger status

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Yesterday nearly ended in disaster before it even started. We were meant to be playing Xia at our regular haunt. However despite numerous attempts to confirm that it would be open, the best answers I had been given were “I think so” to “don’t know”.
So I turned up early to make sure and get set up. So I was a little more than disappointed when once again it was closed. Our alternative venue wouldn’t be open until 2pm. For today that would be too late. So I tried letting the others know not to come. Then I waited. Waited in a hot car with the windows open, just in case my message hadn’t got through. During that wait the venues laundry service turned up and after a little frustration of finding out the place was closed, drove off.

Then dead on time the others turned up. My frantic messaging had been in vein. After some discussion through opened car windows, a brief phone call, Jeff offered to host the game at his along with a bbq afterwards.

Our 3 car convoy made its way to Jeff’s house picking it’s way through the Fenland country roads to his remote Fenland castle of solitude.

There was hardly any wind, so we setup Xia outside, so we could enjoy this brief glimpse of a British Summer.

Being outside, and having a game plan didn’t make any difference to the end result. Despite thinking I was going to play the game more aggressively, arming my ship, giving it armour plating, forgetting to initially give it engines before realising my mistake and swapping the missile for an engine. I still just floated around space aimlessly not doing much, somehow getting 4 game points. A point was for rolling a natural 20, I completed a mission, and I think the other 2 points were for from those tokens you can collect on the board.

So while I was executing my game plan poorly, Jeff and Chris were doing a much better job of racking up fame points, and doing stuff like trading, and completing missions. And that was despite the game smacking them in the face on their first turns by destroying their ships or inflicting lots of damage. It was brutal to watch, and yet funny.

In the end despite late pressure from Jeff, Chris reached the target 10 fame points first, and claimed victory.

Afterwards I got to enjoy a rather nice burger, and great company, before I had to head on home.

Thanks to Jeff you get to see me modelling one of his stylish sun hats, along with arms that should have taken up the earlier offer of sun lotion.

A big big thank you to Jeff and family for saving the day and feeding me.

International Tabletop Day 2018

Fenland Gamers, Game day


It’s the weekend before I turn 50. And for the last couple of years it’s fallen that close to my birthday, so I treat it like part of my birthday celebrations. This year I also get to see the latest Avengers movie too (which I haven’t at the time of writing, but I’ve still got time to do so).

We started off our International Tabletop Day gaming session with the deluxified version of The Flow of History that I’d backed on a Kickstarter last year.

How to describe the game, it’s a civilisation style card game with that’s bit of an engine builder with a kind of auction mechanic.

The auction like mechanic is used to purchase cards to go in your civilisation (read engine). On your go you get to take one of about 4 actions. One of which is to put a bid on a card that has not been bid on yet in the market place. You can only have one bid active at a time. If on your next turn your bid hasn’t been sniped, then you are able to claim/complete that bid. You don’t have to, you can leave the bid there and do one of the other 3 actions available. One of them is sniping another players bid. That’s basically where if you have the resources you can match another players bid and take the card for yourself. The draw back is that player you are sniping the card from gets the money back plus half of the supply of resources rounded down. Which could be giving them lots of resources to snipe back with, or secure a card with so no one else can get it. It’s a rather nifty mechanic that can be quiet tactical, because you could put a bid in hoping to be sniped because you know another player needs the card.

There is some combat but it’s a very easy system to follow, quick, and doesn’t slow down game play at all. Plus it takes away the “so and so is just targeting me” because it relies on players building up defences and trying not to be the weakest. Being the weakest is the main criteria for selecting who to target in a combat, unless there is a draw for that honour. Then the attacking player gets to decide.

There is a hint of variable powers with the initial government card you get during setup. It kind of directs the direction you will take your civilisation. Mine had the military/combat symbol so that hinted I should be utilising this in the cards I selected.

I love the quality of the components of this deluxified version that TMG produced, especially the lovely metal resource coins. Metal coins are always cool.

I really liked the game, definitely a good decision to back this. Can’t wait to play again. Oh yeah, Jeff won this one with Diego and myself tying for first loser.

Our second and final game of the day was Anno 1701: Das Brettspiel. This is a German language only game I believe, which is a shame as I really like the game.

If you like Catan I don’t see how you wouldn’t like this game. It shares a lot of similar mechanics of Catan with some extras. Extras like unique player boards that you will develop, and depending on dice rolls get resources from. Plus you also have an exploration element where you are trying to explore islands to get bonuses and possibly extra resource opportunities. Then you have a too and fro for victory points on 4 tracks represent fire power, trading, happy populace and one other. Basically the leader on each track gets to claim a victory point, lose the lead and that point goes to the new leader instead. So until a player gets to the max position on the track that victory point isn’t safe.

Yeah a fun take on the Catan style of games. I might even have to track down a copy and print out the translated rules. It’s fairly language independent, with minimal text on game components.

It’s these extras that I really like. I enjoy Catan, but this for me is a better experience for a gamer. History will show that Diego managed to snatch victory away from Jeff, scoring a massive 3 victory points in his final turn. Well if he hadn’t Jeff would have won.

A great afternoon gaming, and some great first plays. How do you top that? Visit the local pet store to get some stuff for my mums cats litter tray. How life in the fast lane.