Category Archives: Game day

Smitten with Ultron!

Game day

Sunday was a day off, and I was lucky enough to be able to do some gaming with Jeff.

We started off our afternoon of gaming with attempting to stop the machinations of Ultron in Marvel Champions.

That morning I had went through the heroes making sure they were all at their original deck list, so we could pick any character and just play.

For this battle of brawn and wits Jeff played Tony Stark/Iron Man, and I played Stephen Strange/Doctor Strange.

It all started off so well. Then Ultron went. Before I knew it Strange was down to four life, drone minions were massing in front of him. The only one that managed to land any damage on Ultron was Iron Man.

The drone minions, not getting a chance to reduce the threat tokens. We just got overwhelmed with the drone minions and unable to keep on top of them.

Using that wondrous and miraculous tool of hindsight we both came to the conclusion that our choice of heroes possibly weren’t the best for going up against Ultron.

I looked at the She-Hulk deck (not made up because the aggro cards were in use in the Iron Man deck) and she along with Captain Marvel might have been better choices for going up against Ultron.

After Ultron royally kicked our butts I introduced Jeff to Smitten.

We played three games back to back. Games that got shorter and shorter as we did worse and worse!

But boy does Smitten have that just one more game thing going for it.

Our final game of the afternoon was a game very few people have ever played, Camels Ordinarily Sit Down Carefully.

Apparently I knew the games designer! It was Jeff.

If you can get over Jeff’s use of penny sleeves, Camels for short isn’t a bad game.

Obviously as a prototype some of my feedback such as the graphic design of the cards, iconography (needs it) were quality of life things that don’t affect gameplay.

However one or two, such as having more interaction between cards so you can do combos, more random event cards, even introducing mulligans, or adjusting counters based on player count, are suggestions that do affect game play.

It’s nice that like Streets of Commonville (I think fitting up the designers in game persona for the crime a win) I can boast I’ve beaten the games designer at their own game.

I had a great afternoon playing games with my friend. I’m glad Jeff was able to make it.

A day of gaming

Game day

Before Diego starts his new job the stars aligned so that we both had a day off at the same time.

So naturally it was a game day.

We started off playing a two player game of Brazil Imperium.

Despite using a two player map that had a higher chance of combat there was no combat between Diego and myself.

Map setup used in Brazil Imperium

I really do like how the game board is so configurable for different player counts and if you want a higher or lower chance of combat.

This was the first time I’ve played Brazil Imperium as a two player game. And guess what? It’s still a great game as a two player game.

Obviously I’ve not played it as a solo game. However I really like it at any of the other player counts. Not many games can say that they are good at all/most player counts. They normally have a sweet spot.

I think what helps is the modular board setup that I like so much. I’m not sure I’d be saying the same if the board was a more traditional one.

That modular board makes it so that both sides are close together, a more compact board.

Next time I visit Nathan this is definitely going in the bag.

Oh and I won. So a good start to the days gaming.

Our next game was a new to me game, Tyrants of the Underdark. A game that’s been on my wish list for a while. So I was really happy to get a chance to try it.

I really liked this deckbuilder mashed with area control.

Although I would argue the theme is very weak, and could almost be anything. Having said that I really do like the art on the cards.

You chose a faction at the start, but in reality you are just choosing your playing colour. The faction name is irrelevant, there is no unique faction ability.

Factions we chose!

Player count determines how much of the board is in play. For our two player game it was just the central section. Which is one approach. Another is to have a double sided board (similar to Tapestry) with maps tailored to different player counts.

Diego won this one comfortably.

Our third game was Riverside. What more can I say about this roll and write? I like it, a lot. Plus I won this game.

Our final game of the afternoon was Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade.

This just didn’t jell with me at all.

The production side is great, dry erase pens, good quality player boards.

I loved the quick start rules leaflet, and rule book.

I found the ball piece annoying and smudged the markings you make on the board.

I felt the game dragged on. I thought it’d be quicker to play.

I need to try this again. But not sure I want to.

We cut the game short after I got called by another friend who had some cupcakes and curry for me to pick up.

I had a great time playing with Diego.

It was kind of him to invite me into his home, and provide a delicious lunch.

Hopefully we will get a chance to repeat this in the near future.

Religion Saves Jeff!

Game day

Sunday started off with a coffee and chat with Chris (a friend who had moved out of town) at the Tesco Costa to pick up a copy of Lords of Waterdeep for Diego.

This was followed later in the day by playing a four player game of Brazil Imperium with Jeff and his family.

Who played which leader

Mandy didn’t want an aggressive game so I chose the map below for our game. Which does look awesome.

Map played

It was interesting playing a non-aggressive game. This was more a race to get an engine going so you could complete your era mission cards. A totally different feeling and experience to my first play Friday evening.

With the Capital cities being so far apart each faction had space and time to build and get an engine going without fear of being attacked.

I had some pretty good synergy between my era cards that involved collecting paintings.

I was lucky getting paintings that aided me a lot, like being able to build anywhere, ignoring the terrain restrictions on buildings.

The end of game was triggered by me completing my third era.

Once all the dust had settled, scores tallied. Jeff and myself were tied for first place. The only tie breaker in the rules gave victory to the player with the most science tokens on the map. In this game it was Jeff who had a single one sitting on his church! I had none.

Jeff was the winner on a tie breaker.

But I had a great time playing the game with such great opponents and friends.

On the winning side x2! Aka Jeff’s Birthday Gaming Bash 2022

Game day

Apart from when a global pandemic and the UK Government’s mishandling of it throws a spanner in the works. My friend Jeff throws a gaming day to celebrate another year on this planet.

Yesterday was the appointed day of celebration for this year.

It was a particularly important one for me. One I didn’t want to miss considering the life stuff that happened to Jeff just before Christmas.

There was nearly a spanner thrown in the works when I found out that I’d been given a shift in my new job on the same day. Luckily it was an early shift (remember that early start I mentioned in the previous post?) meaning I could go to work and arrive by midday to take part in the game day.

This years big game saw the return of Memoir 44 and an Overlord scenario.

The first scenario saw the Russians vs the Germans in Tigers in the Snow scenario.

Jeff commanded the German forces, whilst Jonas commanded the Russians.

There was some pretty amazing demonstrations of poor dice rolling by both sides during the game.

However the Germans won in the end.

The second scenario we played was the reverse side of the Tigers in the Snow map, Operation Market Garden.

Naturally this second scenario had a personal connection because Arnhem is one of the battle honours of the Paras. My dads regiment. Dad was in 2 Para.

So when it came to choosing positions at the table there was no way I wasn’t going to be in charge of the 1st Airborne.

This time Jeff was commanding the Allied forces, whilst Jerry commanded the Germans forces.

Despite once again the Allied forces not getting to Arnhem, the Paras stood strong against the German forces, and sealed an Allied win.

Memoir 44 is a great two player game. However as a multiplayer game using the Overlord rules and maps it’s a great multiplayer game too.

Despite being knackered once I got home. I had a great time celebrating another year with Jeff, friends and his family. I’m thankful to have been invited and to have been able to go.

Now the discussion starts for what next years big game will be.

Food:cowboy beans plus cake. The beans were fantastic.

Blue Updated

Game day, Rivals, Rivals Deck Building, Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, vampire the masquerade: rivals, Vampire Wednesday Morning

Wednesday morning saw me visiting Diego’s Pad once again to play VtM Rivals.

It was a chance to try out the changes I made to my blue deck. Diego was also trying out his first built Rivals deck.

Below are our two leaders for the mornings games.

Our leaders

Our first game was a victory for Diego by knocking out my last vampire in my coterie. I’d shuffled my deck too well and wasn’t hitting the newly added reaction cards. Or when I did it was too late. I also remember running dangerously low on my prestige in this game too. Which meant I also wasn’t hitting any of my prestige generating cards.

Game two ended in an agenda points win for Diego.

Something I was unable to stop.

In this game I failed to control the streets, so there was a build up of citizens and vagrants.

The game did last a lot longer. The control side was working really well. The reaction cards were impactful.

I did mill Diego! And for a couple of rounds had Diego down to zero or one card in hand. Having two copies of mental block out meant a lot of pain for Diego.

I’m happier the deck is working a lot better.

Ok here is the bit folks really want to see, the new deck list.

Blue V2.0

Leader, Haven, and Agenda
  • Agenda – Death is Only the Beginning
  • Haven – Eternal Life Mortuary
  • Leader – Annika (Hecata)

Vampire Deck

  • Faith Gray (Tremere)
  • Lorenzo Murik (Tremere)
  • Anjali the Samedi (Hecata)
  • Bianca Giovanni (Hecata)
  • Kristin (Hecata)
  • Nathaniel (Hecata)

Library

  • Second Tradition: The Domain (Action Ongoing)
  • Sleep of the Damned (Ritual) x 2
  • The Shakedown (Action) x 3
  • Clairvoyance (Action) x 2
  • Blood Makes Noise (Ritual)
  • Truth of Blood (Ritual)
  • Mental Block (Unhosted Action Ongoing) x 3
  • Tenebrous Avatar (Reaction) x 3
  • Fortify the Inner Facade (Reaction) x 3
  • Defense of the Sacred Haven (Ritual) x 2
  • Grave Robbing (Action) x 3
  • Early Grave (Action) x 2
  • Seek Knowledge (Ritual) x 2
  • Fourth Tradition: The Accounting (Action) x 3
  • Flesh of Marble (Reaction Special) x 2
  • Spirit’s Touch (Action) x 2
  • Hardened Flesh (Reaction)
  • The Mighty Fall (Attack/Reaction) x 2
  • Slap in the Face (Reaction) x 2

Thoughts

So approximately a third of the deck are reaction cards! That’s a pretty big commitment.

With me milling Diego in game two I want to try this deck with the Disheveled Shelves agenda.

I’m also thinking maybe cutting back the rituals and adding in the wraith cards!

I still need rituals to increase the havens secrecy. But I’m not really getting the opportunity or deciding to play them. Which means the vampire slots might be open to consideration also.

A hot day of gaming

Game day

It’s been one of my days off and I managed to get a day of gaming in!

This morning I was over to Diego’s Pad as it is identified on the bgstat app play VtM Rivals. I’ll cover this in another post. I want to go over deck changes and this isn’t the post for that.

Then this afternoon Jonathan and myself met up at our local Costa to play games.

It’s been a long time since Jonathan and I have held one of these.

It’s been a while (not as long as the gap between now and our last Costa gaming) since I’ve had a chance to play a game or two with Jonathan.

It’s the price we’ve paid since we had the influx of new members to the club night.

I’m not complaining. I think it’s amazing and wonderful that we have so many people now attending meets, even arranging their own sessions.

New friendships have formed.

New gaming rivalries.

It’s gotten easier to get various games to the table.

But the side effect is that we don’t get to play games together as often as we used to.

On a side note I’m now wondering how or when the next stage of the club happens. By that I mean we get even more members coming along! Or even how we achieve that. Will it be a slow gradual growth or like this time a more dramatic increase over a short period? I can’t wait to see which.

After purchasing our over priced beverages we played a game of the roll and write I got from Jonathan The Castles of Burgundy: The Dice Game.

Apart from a rules gaff on bonus points per completed area. The light to mid weight roll and write was fun as a two player game.

It’s foot print, and simplicity to some of my other roll and writes makes it a great game to put in the bag for these sort of sessions.

Our second game of the afternoon was Onitama with the “new” Shadow and Light expansion.

We both really liked the Shadow and Light expansion. It bought a nice hidden movement element to the game.

Plus this main way to play the expansion (there is another way you can play Onitama) was quick to setup and understand the rule changes. It helps these are summarised inside the two game screens.

You have an extra decision to make on a turn about whether you move the ninja or not. Plus extra tracking of the ninja on the smaller board. But it doesn’t actually add another to the time to take a turn.

I think our main and only criticism of this expansion is that the screens could have been a bit taller. A criticism I’ve seen elsewhere. I feel the box size of the expansion had more to govern the size of them than the actual practical use of them.

The results of our Costa Gaming

I’ve had a blast playing with my friends today. Long over due.

Walk space toaster

Game day

The last time, in fact the only time, I got Battlestar Galactica (BSG) the boardgame to the table was back in 2017.

So it was long overdue a return to the table.

The driving force for getting BSG to the table this time was a request by Colin on the Fenland Gamer discord server that he’d like to try the game.

I have a copy, it’s on my big game challenge, so I setup an event to play BSG along with the Pegasus expansion.

In the run up to last Saturday (our chosen day of play) I sleeved the cards in the game, and purchased a 3ft by 3ft starfield art neoprene playmat.

Obviously I wanted to protect my copy of BSG (you should Google how much this out of print game goes for), and these were the measures I’ve put in place to do that. The playmat will also be used with Xia and Star Wars Outer Rim. The starfield pattern will be a great back drop to those games, plus protect the game boards.

Whilst setting up before the others arrived I got distracted by a full English breakfast for my lunch. But still I had the majority of the setup done before players started arriving.

I had been expecting seven of us in total to be playing. Which would mean we would be playing with the Cylon Leader variant of the game. However as with all things in life, stuff happens, and seven became five.

The plan for this game with the Pegasus expansion was never to use the New Caprica part of the expansion. I may play a game of BSG with it at some future point in time. However the majority of the games will be with just the Pegasus side of things. Which doesn’t add too much more to the game overhead wise. You get more of everything else. More choice.

So which characters did we choose? We went with the following:

  • Colin – ‘Chief’ Galen Tyrol
  • Marcin – Gaius Baltar (President) cylon
  • Syringa – Karl ’Helo’ Agathon cylon
  • Diego – Kara ’Starbuck’ Thrace / Lee ’Apollo’ Adama
  • Me – Helena Cain (Admiral)

Setup complete it was time to try and get Galactica to Kobold and throw a cylon or two into the airlock.

Galactica was soon surrounded by cylon basestars, raiders, and heavy raiders, whilst avoiding ever escalating crisis.

Apparently wanting to use my characters once per game ability of doing a blind jump (as long as the distance travelled is six or less) to escape an early cylon attack marked me out as a cylon!

Gaius wasn’t using his Quorum cards, so I instigated an election and had Helo installed as President instead.

Gaius took this loss of power badly and plotted away to regain it.

In the meantime as revenge Gaius tried to unsuccessfully remove Cain as Admiral. Whilst Cain returned the favour of failing to force Gaius out of the airlock.

However once the second loyalty cards had been dealt out, Gaius used his once per game ability to look at every players loyalty. He knew who the cylons were.

With that knowledge Gaius advised Cain to throw Starbuck out the airlock. To be fair Starbuck had been acting suspiciously. The vote did not go well for Starbuck, who took a walk in to space without a space suit.

Sadly Starbuck was not a cylon, and moral took a hit onboard Galactica.

Apollo stepped up to try and fill the shoes left by Starbuck.

After Apollo got Cain thrown in the brig. Helo took over command of the fleet.

But Helo had a short spell in command before Apollo wrestled command away from him. Followed by grabbing the Presidency. Were we seeing the start of a new dictatorship.

A missed guided dictatorship that still had cylons sabotaging things. And to cap to things off cylons had boarded Galactica wrecking havoc.

Eventually Helo and Gaius (just confirming what Cain had been telling them ever since being tricked into killing Starbuck) revealed themselves as cylons to finish off the downfall of Galactica.

It was close, Galactica only had to make its final jump to Kobold to win. But the cylons managed to ware down the ships resources to secure a cylon victory.

We had a blast. Lots of banter.

I really mustn’t leave it so long between plays.

However before it does get back to the table Xia and The Thing need some loving.

The expected call about the job never happened. So I assumed I hadn’t got it. Best prepare for the worst. It did take the shine off such a great afternoons gaming.

A thought on the Hecata Deck

Game day, Rivals, Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, vampire the masquerade: rivals

Yesterday the planets finally aligned so Diego and I were able to get the latest Vampire the Masquerade Rivals expansion Shadows and Shrouds to the table.

I was so glad we were able to do this. I have plans to build my first Rivals deck around Hecata and their torpor shenanigans.

But before I do that I really needed to play the precon deck as it comes in the expansion. Get an idea of how the clan plays, what sort of tricks they have up their sleeve.

Remember these two games were two player. So where the deck might be “weak” in a head to head game, it might be stronger when played in a three or four player game.

I went with Annika as my leader in the first game. If my memory doesn’t fail me the advice for new players playing the core precon decks is to use the six cost blood potency vampire as the leader. So that’s the advice I went with for my first play of the Hecata deck.

Now I will state for the record I had no idea what cards were in the library deck. I was playing blind!

All I knew going into these games was the Hecata deck made use of the new wraith mechanic. More on that later. Plus you wanted vampires in torpor.

Looking at Annika’s ability I was assuming there were going to be a few rituals in the deck.

However during our first game I spent more than an action or two drawing cards, or playing action cards such as Grave Robbing to draw cards hoping to get a ritual. I didn’t draw a single one.

An inspection of the deck revealed it had five ritual cards out of the forty that make up the library.

Our leaders for the two games

With two other vampires (Nathaniel and Bianca Giovanni) interacting with rituals in some way. You start to get the impression that having rituals out is an important part of the deck. Although there are a couple of action cards that do things with rituals that seem token gestures to that plan.

So I would expect to be hitting rituals a bit more reliably than I was. Especially when one of them (Summon Spirit) is one of the very few ways for a player to make wraiths in the deck.

I didn’t make any wraiths in this game. Although I did use the leader ability to burn the odd mortal in the street.

I lost the game due to having no more vampires left in my coterie. I’d spent too much time looking for rituals and making sure I had vampires in torpor. Leaving myself open to having pretty weak vampires left in my coterie that could be easily taken out.

For our second I changed my leader to Zahara.

I still didn’t hit a ritual until late in the game.

Although I did get Zahara cycling through torpor nicely to generate wraiths. The Haven Eternal Life Mortuary’s Leader Ability was really handy for doing this. A nice little synergy.

Agendas and Havens for the two games

Diego won with an agenda points victory.

In all the Hecata precon has three strategies it uses. Although thematic, I think it could have been more focused on say just two of them.

Having vampires in torpor with the torpor ability is cool. Getting extra value from them during the torpor/mend step is nice. At the moment it’s just a matter of building decks around the current torpor abilities. So I see decks that splash the odd Hecata vampire to supplement their main strategy.

Wraiths are an interesting addition. I’d like more ways to create them. But having a combo of cards that burn mortals, do something based on number of burned mortals, and create wraiths, the amount of initial cards is probably about right. Plus I like how this mechanic now makes burning a mortal by another player a harder decision for that player. They may need to heal badly, but do they really want to fuel these cards?

I’d also like to see more wraith abilities. At the moment they boost the stats of the vampire they are attached to. I’d like to see some that punish the attacking player. But the surprise element is cool.

To be fair to the deck with the number of action cards for combat I don’t think I was aggressive enough with the deck. I did like the reaction cards like Flesh of Marble that increase the defense of the vampire and change aggregated damage to physical damage.

I need to look at the other cards available but I think we might be seeing the start of a “blue” control style deck in Rivals. Spirit’s Touch interacting with another players library, or Clairvoyance looking at their hand. Mental Block looks fun and stops a player playing a card from their deck. All “blue” type things to do to another player. And I have been known to play blue type decks in the past.

Overall a fun deck, just not overly suitable for the two player head to head format.

Wiener, wiener wiener, wiener wiener

Big Game Saturdays, Game day, game of thrones

Saturday saw the long overdue return of A Game of Thrones the boardgame second edition (that’s a mouthful to say) to the table.

The impetus to get it back was to play it with the third and largest expansion for the game Mother of Dragons.

I bought the expansion early on during the big global event if memory does not fail me on this. For sure it was during said event.

So at some point I was going to want to play this again.

To help encourage getting it back to the table I did add it to two of the gaming challenges I set up at the start of the year.

So a couple of months back I setup an event on the Fenland Gamers discord server. I had three players (including myself) able to commit to playing the game. With a fourth unsure.

We needed four players to be able to use the new map of Essos and House Targaryen. Which is one of the major attractions of the expansion.

In the days, even weeks before I did try getting the playmat for the game. Sadly there were none in stock, those on eBay that looked affordable had a massive (£70+ postage!). Even a couple of pleas on a Facebook gaming group went unanswered.

On the day the unsure sadly was not able to make it. But as I was getting that news and about to start putting away the extra map and Targaryen pieces in walked Jimmy and an unexpected Nathaniel. We had a fourth.

A brief note on setting up before the players arrived. Which you know I like to do. For this game I setup as much as I could before everyone arrived. However which houses were controlled by players and which were to become vassal houses couldn’t be done until everyone had arrived. Luckily everything a player needed for each house was bagged, decks ready. So once selected all they had to do was grab everything for that house. Then it was just a matter of getting the components needed for each vassal house from the houses components.

Whilst waiting for Jeff to arrive we started choosing our houses for the game.

I went first and chose Targaryen. I wanted this house in the game, the only way to guarantee it was to choose it myself.

Here are how the houses ended up being chosen.

  • Stark – Jimmy
  • Baratheon – Nathanial
  • Targaryen – Me
  • Tyrell – Jeff

The vassal houses were: Lannister, Greyjoy, Martell, Arryn.

Oh we were also using the Tides of War deck in combat.

Then battle commenced.

Despite repeated warnings throughout the game about Jeff and how he was clocking up strongholds and castles in the name of House Tyrell. Jimmy and Nathaniel kept attacking me whilst leaving Jeff mostly alone.

Then the moment came when I declared Jeff had won the next round. By then there was nothing they could do. They tried in vein to delay the inevitable. But their efforts were futile.

It was interesting that even at the moment I had declared Jeff’s impending victory he too had not fully seen it.

If only someone had warned them earlier!

All I did was sit back and watch events unfold as predicted, whilst inflicting a final bit of humiliation to Nathaniel as payback for the constant naval attacks by capturing the Baratheon castle.

I’m a fan of the earlier two expansions A Feast for Crows (four players) and A Dance with Dragons (six players). But for me Mother of Dragons beats them hands down.

The vassal system introduced adds a new additional tactical element to the game from choosing which house to take control of, to how you are going to use them that turn. Granted it adds considerably to the play time (there are rules handling if a player has to leave during a game, they also become a vassal!) The vassal system replaces the neutral force tokens of the base game, and I really do prefer it.

I liked House Targaryen and the dragons. Although it does add a rather big target to your back. I think Nathaniel and Jimmy were too focused on my threat with the dragons enabling Jeff to exploit that distraction. But they were cool to play and have their alternative win condition. Plus their specific Westeros deck did seem to encourage a bit of wheeling and dealing with the other houses.

The Iron Bank cards were interesting, although Jeff was the only one who bought one. I think more plays are required before I can make my mind up over these.

I like that you can use the other expansions house cards with this one. So if you only play Mother of Dragons they are not just collecting dust. Plus for now another reason to get the game back to the table!

Mother of Dragons will be my preference when it comes to playing A Game of Thrones. Unless time is tight and the player count matches up the other expansions won’t get a full outing.

I had a blast and can’t wait to revisit Westeros to get my revenge and recapture the Iron Throne.

The living legend that is…

Game day, star wars

It was supposed to be the next Group 2 D&D session today. However due to that thing the government is in denial about and would rather you forget about, we were once again going to be down by 50% of the group.

So I suggested we play a three player game of Star Wars Outer Rim instead.

I knew that the other two had never played the game before. But that didn’t stop me adding in the Unfinished Business expansion.

After all it added more cards to the various decks that the game uses. More characters to play as. Favours (not used) and Ambitions. Plus Core World end tiles allowing the Galaxy to be crossed.

I was going to just use the extra cards and core worlds but after watching a review by Luke Hector I decided to use the Ambition cards as well. The logic being they would give new players a focus on what to do on their turns and for the game.

Here are the characters and Ambition cards selected.

  • Jyn Erso – Living Legend (Me)
  • Han Solo – Renowned Smuggler (Shane)
  • Maz Kanata – Crime Lord (Anthony)

We were playing first to eight fame points plus complete their ambition card.

After an early but brief lead on the fame points. I was trailing on that front until a late surge towards the end which put me in front again.

I was the last to upgrade their ship.

As for the new stuff. I liked the ambition cards, especially how they gave a direction/focus.

The core worlds certainly aided in making the outer rim smaller, and quicker to navigate from one end to the other.

In the end we ended our game not because of a winner but due to running out of time.

Although Shane and myself both had two ambition tokens on our cards, I had nine fame to his eight. So I claimed the victory. Another half hour or two turns I’d have won normally.

A great afternoon gaming.