Category Archives: Game day

Solo vs Fett

Game day

The yesterday morning started off so well with bacon sarnies. I’ve not had one of these for breakfast for a long time. It was washed down with coffee. But I’ve been slumming it while visiting Nathan by having to drink instant coffee! It was Kenco Americano instant coffee. Which to be fair is on the top end of the instant quality scale. But still instant!

Our first game of the day was Star Wars Outer Rim.

I bought Outer Rim during the first lockdown in 2020. It seems so long ago now. Obviously it hadn’t made it to the table since gaming in person has become a thing again. We (I’m including other Fenland Gamers here) have so many games to play that we purchased during the last two years of global events it’s just not possible to get them all to the table so soon.

Luckily I knew the theme of this would appeal to Nathan and be a good game to learn with him.

Nathan chose Boba Fett to play as. Whilst I naturally had to go for Han Solo.

Despite everything being bagged and in deck boxes setup is still pretty long. It’s mainly all down to the many decks you need to separate out and shuffle.

The game is also a table hog. Not only the space required for the board and decks, but also for the player boards too. Luckily we had a pretty large kitchen island we were playing on.

We naturally were playing a two player game which meant there was very little player interaction throughout the game. At the higher player counts I’m hoping that improves. The encounter cards certainly imply that it should.

Star Wars Outer Rim

As a two player experience the game was ok. We had a good time. Nathan enjoyed it. We were playing to eight fame points as recommended in the Learn to Play rule book, instead of ten. Nathan during the game asked if we could play to ten fame points. Which is a good sign he was enjoying the game.

I did like that both our chosen characters had unique abilities that were thematic to the character. Plus our characters both had personal goals that if met allowed you to flip them over to a more powerful side. And the goals were also very thematic to the character.

I did manage to get a YT-1300 which also had a thematic shop goal that if met allowed me to turn it into the Millennium Falcon.

The goals were pretty cool and something else to aim for whilst playing.

In the end I managed to not only hit the required eight fame points but also hit ten, for the win.

Final scores

Naturally playing a new game bought during the pandemic has helped progress one or two of my current gaming challenges.

Challenges

Our second and final game of the day before I had to leave was Onitama.

Another new game for Nathan. Another game that he beat me at. Which will cheer Jonathan up (see his comment on yesterdays post).

Onitama

Sadly after being beaten by Nathan it was time to leave. It’s always the hardest part of visiting him. But at least now I’m in a position where I can visit him more regularly.

I had such a great time with Nathan. I always love playing games with him, it such quality time. Plus so far I haven’t introduced him to a game yet that he doesn’t like.

I can’t wait until my next visit (hopefully the start of March).

A splendid afternoon gaming

Game day

Yesterday was a rare day off for me at the moment.

I’d spent the morning tidying up an area in my bedroom to have my Raspberry Pi P400 set up for a project. I hadn’t long finished when I saw a message from Jonathan asking me if I fancied gaming that afternoon.

Naturally I responded positively. A time and place was agreed.

At the appointed time I joined Jonathan at the Wisbech St Mary Sports and Community Centre to play some games.

In my bag was the still in wrap Splendor Marvel. Yep I’d been so tired since getting it I hadn’t even opened it up.

Jonathan suggested we give it a play. I was up for that.

It was nice to see Space Cowboys have used a heavier poker chip again. I have a first printing Splendor which also had a heavier poker chip. I prefer the heavier chip. They feel better in the hand. Why am I going on about this? Later printings of Splendor had lighter poker chips in them. There was a lot of criticism about this at the time when it came to light.

There are some differences between Splendor and Splendor Marvel. Not major but some.

The gold poker chip has been replaced with a grey S.H.I.E.L.D. Token. There are four Location Tiles that are double sided and replace the noble tiles.

A new Avengers Assemble Tile has been introduced that is worth three points. This is an interesting addition. On some of the cards is an Avengers symbol. The first person to have three of those symbols gets the Avengers Assemble Tile. However if another player gets more of the symbols in front of them they get the tile instead. So this tile will move around the table. It also introduces the possibility of untriggering the end of the game!

There is a sixth poker chip called the Time Token that is green. The only way to get one is to buy a level three card. You can’t spend the token. However you need one to trigger the end of the game!

There is also an Infinity Gauntlet Tile that acts as a reminder of the end game trigger. To trigger the end of the game you need 16 Infinity Points AND 1 bonus of each color AND 1 Green token.

Splendor Marvel

One thing I wish there was for this version of the game is a play mat. I do like the official Splendor play mat. And yes I could use that. But it’d look odd without Marvel art work on it.

Sadly Jonathan beat me despite me having the Avengers Assemble Tile.

So I have both versions of Splendor (at the moment). But is there room for both in my collection? A bit of me says yes. I don’t have the expansion for Splendor. So Splendor Marvel gives me more bang for my money. I like the additions made to the game, especially the Avengers Assemble Tile and the majority gets it. If I had the original with the expansion I might find it a tougher decision. But theme and the changes mean Splendor Marvel is the one I’d keep out of the two.

We followed Splendor Marvel with one of Jonathan’s games, Tobago.

I’d never played Tobago before. So Jonathan did a rule rundown for me.

How best to describe the mechanics? There is definitely deduction as you try and work out where the treasure is hidden based on the clues for each treasure.

Hand management is there to as you manage your hand of clues, and deciding when and where to play them to help find the treasure.

There is definitely some variety with the use of a modular board.

Manipulating the clues so that treasures are located near to you and not near you opponents is key.

I liked the landmarks and the random placing of them following placement rules, tied in with the modular boards means no two games are going to be the same layout.

Tobago

I enjoyed the game and managed to amass a lot of the high value treasure cards.

Just so you know how comprehensive my victory was I’ve included the final scores below.

The gaming session was great for a couple of the challenges. But you’ll see that in a future post.

It was great getting some gaming in with Jonathan. It was just what I needed on my day off.

And here we are once more at the end of another post and the photos taken by Jonathan during our gaming session.


Photos taken by Jonathan

Funky Vampire Morning!

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

My first gaming of 2022 was with Diego this morning.

The session started off so well with home made cheese cake and espresso coffee (for once hot! – Diego’s words not mine). I hadn’t expected the cheese cake but it was a most pleasant surprise. Despite only a couple of days earlier having teased Diego that he had made cake for another friend they had had round for coffee, but never me.

After a most enjoyable (ok it was amazing but need to under play it) slice of cheese cake the rest of the morning went down hill from there.

Our first game of the morning was a two player game of Vampire the Masquerade Rivals.

Tremere (Diego) vs Thin-blood (Me)

Once again it was a precon match up. We will get round to building our own decks. Honest.

Although I did manage to get all of my coterie out, I only drew one Alchemy card. Which was a pain.

However I did take out three citizens from the street. But I wasn’t taking them out fast enough to get the win.

I was undone by that ol’ Tremere blood magic. With Diego playing Grigori as his leader he was soon replacing the blood on my 1 blood potency vampires and then sending them to torpor when he paid for stuff with that blood.

Maybe I should have been more aggressive and attacked Grigori.

The final score of our game, confirming Diego’s victory.

Our next game was one I’d been wanting to get to the table for a while, Funkoverse.

I played Boom, Slash, Splash or T-Rex, Raptor and Jaws with Ghost companion. Whilst Diego chose The Black Widow, Arya with Needle, and Doc Brown.

Although I own a few of the Funkoverse sets, and therefore have a few maps. Having never played the game before I had no idea which maps were good for a first time play. So I chose the map on top of the stack of “smaller” map boards. Which just happened to be the map from the DC101 set. Diego chose which scenario we played for the map.

The scenario we played (chosen by Diego)

I’m not sure what advantage Jaws gets being submerged. I know whilst submerged it can’t do assist, challenge, or interact actions. It’s very thematic that’s for sure. But tactically I’m confused why you would want Jaws to be submerged.

We had done one big rules misplay. Once we interacted with a points marker we didn’t put the marker on the cool down track. We kept having a nagging feeling that we were missing something during the game. What was stopping you from camping next to a marker and interacting with it for both of your actions? If we had played it correctly I think there would have been different decisions and tactics used by us both.

I have to say Funkoverse looks lovely on the table. You are either a fan of the big headed character design or you are not! I obviously am a fan.

Game play wise, it might not be the most complicated skirmish game. But I like how it’s so quick to learn/pick up. It makes it very accessible I think.

Despite the fact I had already put together my team, I love how quick and easy team selection can be. It can be as simple as “I like that character, that character and that character”. Or you can look for synergies and make it a more complicated, in-depth affair.

Having double sided maps and four scenarios per set means you get a little variety in game play per set. However I think there is little or no variety in scenarios between sets. But I need to check that they are indeed similar/same.

This particular map did feel crowded with two three character teams. But that might have been to its advantage if we hadn’t done the misplay.

The final scores sadly show another Diego victory.

I look forward to getting Funkoverse back to the table, maybe with one of the bigger maps, different scenario, even with more players. Plus with the Thanos expansion it introduces ultimate mode, a one verses many game play. Which would be interesting to try.

After our gaming I had to pop into my place of employment to pick up a couple of things that I hadn’t been able to get elsewhere the day before. But thanks to Diego my purchases increased by a couple of items.

Christmas Eve Gaming

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Yes I know this post is appearing Boxing Day. I had to write about this at some point. There wasn’t time on the day. Well technically there was but I was too tired. After all I had been to work that morning, and then more or less gone straight to the game session (ran in the house changed and left).

Then yesterday was Christmas Day with all that entails. I just about got the post out wishing everyone seasonal greetings. However I did cook our roast beef, and all that goes with it. Which meant the beef was cooked to medium and not the over cooked well done.

However I digress. The point of this post is to talk about the Fenland Gamers Christmas Eve gaming session.

Traditionally the Christmas Eve session has been the first of the club’s three Christmas holidays gaming sessions. However this year it was to be our only planned club event, and our last for the foreseeable future at our hosts The Luxe.

Due to the number attending this gaming session and the restriction on the number of tables we were allowed to have set up (just the one). Our planned Bohemian Villages game was postponed into the new year and our “new” venue. Which means I am still the current reigning Bohemian Villages Champion.

Luckily Jonathan had games with him that played on the larger player count side. I hadn’t had time to grab anything specific (remember I barely had time to change out of work clothes) I had just grabbed my bag from our last session that was of no use.

Our first game of the afternoon was Jewel Heist.

Jewel Heist falls into what I would call Resistance style games, or hidden role/social deduction games.

The theme of this game is in the name! Thieves are trying to steal jewels whilst the detectives are trying to workout who the thieves are and make an arrest before all the jewels are gone.

In Jewel Heist there are physical jewels the thieves have to take! And that is where we start to see how Jewel Heist differentiates itself from other games in the genre.

This game relies on sound! What did you hear while your eyes were closed? Did you hear a marble falling? Did you hear someone moving? Which direction did the sound come from? Any audible clue to help narrow down the suspects.

There is also a time pressure on the thieves whilst taking the jewels. They have 15 seconds to pull off the heist each round. So they don’t get all the time in the world to pull off the perfect crime. They are forced to quick and potentially noisy.

I didn’t think I’d like this reliance on sound and the time restriction but it worked really well, and I found myself enjoying it.

Although I would say a rectangular table probably isn’t the optimal table for this game, and that a circular one would have been much much better.

The game then borrows from Cash ‘n Guns for its voting system of who players think are thieves for each round by pointing fingers (not foam guns) simultaneously. Another clever way of differentiating itself.

Overall I think this is a nice addition to the genre. It’s different enough to make it standout. Although it seemed overly complicated/fiddly with the jewel tower, it wasn’t. It’s a fairly streamlined fun.

We played best of three games. It ended up the thieves winning two games to one. And I was never on the winning side.

Our final game of the afternoon was Saboteur. I think all we need to take away from this fun hidden role game was I didn’t win, and neither did Jonathan. Although he did get more points than me!

Although it’s been about two years since I played Saboteur, and I do enjoy playing it. Why haven’t I added it to my collection? I think I did look at getting it not long after first playing it. But why I never pulled the trigger I have no idea. Most likely won’t be adding it any time soon. I think there are three members now with copies.

I had a great afternoons gaming with some great people.

At the end of the session we collected my other table and they both left with us to go to their new home.

Oh I also had a delivery Christmas Eve. The Kickstarter stretch goal packs for Fields of Green and it’s expansion Grand Fair (which I don’t currently own) arrived from Artipia Games.

Fields of Green KS stretch goals and Promos

I love that Artipia sell these, and wish more publishers did this.

Tapestry of Dragons

Commander, Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night, magic, MtG

Friday evening saw some Commander action taking place. This time it was against some ex-students.

The first game we played saw me take my Eldrazi deck out for a spin. But it was too slow, and none of us could stop Bob doing the inevitable and defeat us all. Once he had his Emrakul, The Aeons Torn out it was game over. I wasn’t finding any answers. I definitely wasn’t getting to my big Eldrazi hitters. All we could do was say “gg” through gritted teeth.

Our second game saw my Ur-dragon deck hit the table. Two cool things happened in this game. Firstly I got to play Tiamat. Which is an obnoxious card to play. Being able to get from your deck your five most nastiest dragons is obscene. It puts a big target on you as your opponents know what you just got.

Secondly despite having over 100 life I was still able to have my dragon horde swoop in and kill Bob. Giving double strike to them all really helped. Sadly only 20 points of that damage was Commander damage. Despite me trying to find a way to get that final single point of damage.

Taking Bob out meant I was also dead. But there was nothing I could do to stop the silly number of hydra tokens that were coming my way.

It was a fun evening of Commander. But my losing streak was continuing.

Saturday saw not only Diego playing Tapestry but Jonathan joined us as well.

Both had not played before. But that didn’t scare me off from teaching the game with Plans and Ploys (P&P), and the Arts and Architecture (A&A) expansions thrown in to the mix.

I had rigged the tech and tapestry decks so that we got to see the new cards from the newest expansion A&A. Plus we only chose civilisations from the two expansions. I also didn’t use the advanced capital city mats from A&A. However I did shuffle up both sets of landmark cards from the expansions before drawing four of them.

Even taking into account the above setting up, plus the addition of the fifth track and masterpiece cards. I don’t think with the expansions added into the mix there was too much additional stuff, or over complication to the game to make it too much for new players to take in.

I specifically advanced on the new Arts track because I wanted to see it in use, and try the new masterpiece cards.

Tapestry

I have to say I liked the new masterpiece cards. But not the card size! Can’t sleeve them unless I cut some sleeves down.

Loved being able to use the inspiration tiles to upgrade one of the resource tracks.

I was already a fan of the landmark cards after they were introduced in P&P. So having more of them is just great.

Another thing I like about the arts track is that you choose which type of income building you move to your capital city. It made hitting the landmark card trigger I had very easy.

I need to sleep on the above and get some more games in so I can expand on those very basic initial thoughts above. At the moment there is a germ of a thought that the above is too powerful. But is it? Does it balance out if others are also doing it?

I think this was the most I’d done completing rows and columns in my capital city. It felt pretty cool. It certainly looked pretty cool.

I knew Diego would like the game. But would Jonathan?

He did indeed like it. And that’s despite getting salty over the dystopia tapestry card I played allowing me to grab any landmark on the landmark board. Naturally I went with the tallest (on the off chance there was a tie for first place).

Plus the end of turn trigger for one of his landmark cards was an issue. Jonathan will explain better than me in the comments his issue with this. For me it was not an issue.

Anyway here are the final scores showing I had indeed broken the week long losing streak I’d been on.

You know how this post is ending.

Photos taken by Jonathan

Some gaming

Fenland Gamers, Game day, game night

Last night was the monthly club meet up for December.

Unlike the Friday session numbers which have been incredible (for us) this get togethers attendance was on par with previous ones.

We split into two groups of three. Which saw Gavin, Colin and Jonathan playing Ticket to Ride, followed by Love Letter: Batman.

Whilst Julie, Macin and myself played a game Macin bought along Adrenaline.

The boardgame stats app reminded my it was way back in 2017 when I last played Adrenaline.

Adrenaline

It was nice to have this back to the table.

Naturally a refresher was needed on the rules. But things soon came back to me, and we were all running around, shooting each other with cool weapons, picking up items, and trying to get the killing shot.

Adrenaline is as fun as I remember, and I’m glad Macin bought his copy along.

Final scores for Adrenaline

This morning on my day off I got to play a game of Vampire the Masquerade Rivals with Diego.

Today it was the two new clans from the new Wolf and Rat expansion doing battle.

Diego chose the nosferatu deck, whilst I went with gangrel.

I got off to a good start but seemed to run out of steam in the middle to late game.

Although I did burn one of Diego’s vampires. Which was pretty cool.

However the nosferatu agenda is pretty powerful, and soon allows them to catch up any lead others might have, and then pull ahead.

Final result of Rivals

After being beaten by Diego we had enough time to do a learning game of Fields of Green (the game I bought off Gavin last night).

I got Fields of Green over Amongst the Stars because of the theme. With the farming theme I’m more likely to get it to the table with Jonathan. He doesn’t do sci-fi (amongst other themes).

I really liked this engine builder.

A two player game is slightly different to a regular three or four player game. So I’d like to try the game at its higher player count.

It plays quite quickly really for two players. But with the higher player count a draft mode is added at the start of each round. Which I’m sure will extend the play time.

But there is a lot to like about the game, but I’ll talk more about that stuff after the next play.

In the meantime the final scores below will confirm that I’m on a three game losing streak at the moment.

Final scores for Fields of Green

Ok having played a new to me game my challenge stats have been updated. So let’s share that progress.

My current challenge progress

Finally it’s time to end on the usual high note of Jonathan’s photos.

Photos taken by Jonathan from last nights gaming session.

Stay fluid

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Well the plans for getting Tapestry and it’s expansion Plans and Ploys did change. One of the players had to drop out. We knew it was a possibility. One we hoped wouldn’t happen, but that’s life in the current world events. It was out of the control of everyone.

However as Confucius said ‘The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.’ a last minute plea for players was answered with a maybe. Our plan was still alive but we wouldn’t know until mid day if it would survive.

But survive it did, so Marcin, Julie and myself met at The Luxe to build our civilisations and see which one would be the victorious.

I had one aim in this game. I wanted to get into space. I’d never done it before and it was something cool I wanted to do. Even if doing so meant I didn’t win.

Naturally the Plans and Ploys adds more tapestry cards, more civilisations, more technologies, more tiles. And that sort of stuff is always welcome. However the new landmark cards I liked. All three of us got our personal landmarks out during the game. Which was cool. I liked how they gave you something to possibly aim for.

I think the title of this blog post and the Confucius quote best describes my approach to Tapestry when playing. You need to be able to adapt to changing circumstances, mainly from the tapestry cards you draw or play. At one point I was planning to play one tapestry card on my income phase however because of a conquer action that Marcin took I decided to play a different tapestry card to exploit that instead.

I managed to draw a few tapestry cards early on which included two trap cards. Which I did use. The first time I used one was with Marcin attacking the central tile that I controlled. Sadly he had one of the new cards that countered a trap card! Foiled. However the second time that Marcin tried taking over one of my lands the trap card was successful.

Somehow my civilisation did manage to get into space and discover a monolith (one of the new tiles). All very 2001 A Space Odyssey. But so cool. Getting into space didn’t disappoint.

Marcin was the first of us to do the final income round, and in doing so set the score of 136 that Julie and I had to try and beat in our final income rounds.

Julie was next and did really well to get over 50 victory points to take her into first place with 138 points.

Then it was my turn. For the majority of the game I had been languishing well behind the other two. My final two ages saw me catch up and move into second place. But could I get enough points to win? I wasn’t sure I could. I thought I’d end up last. However after my final income round I slide into first place by a point.

It was a very very close game in the end. But whether you win by a single point (as I did today) or by a country mile it’s still just a win at the end of the day.

Final scores

Just realised as I write this post after the fact I missed 10 points for reaching the end of a development track! Doh!

It was a great afternoon gaming, great to get Tapestry to the table again, great hosts, and great friends.

Oh the title of this post I took from S.W.A.T., it’s what the team leader Hondo says to his team before they leave the tactical vehicle to respond to an incident.

A much needed gaming session

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Friday I was feeling I needed some game time. So on the clubs discord server I put out the call to see who was free for some gaming Saturday afternoon.

Luckily with a slight adjustment to the initial suggested start time two others could make it.

The initial games I had suggested playing were Lost Ruins of Arnak, Tapestry or Funkoverse (if there were only 2 of us). But during Saturday morning I had been tempted to take Dune Imperium. Even Wingspan for a fleeting moment was considered. It was a close call because which ever of the games I took I’d have to teach it because the game would be new to at least one person.

In the end I went with putting Lost Ruins of Arnak and Love Letter 2nd edition in the bag.

As usual I went a little early to start getting set up. I like to maximise the game time for the others playing.

I was still setting up when Jeff arrived, and almost finished when Julie turned up. Which meant I could start teaching the game to our noob to the game Julie.

Lost Ruins of Arnak

I like Lost Ruins but I think this second play cements my preference for Imperium. Well for the time being. The expansion may change that. After all the expansion does add one of the things I like better about Imperium the asynchronous player boards.

There is also a nagging feeling that in both plays we are not discovering enough new dig sites and focusing too much on the research track. It seems the game is more about racing up the research track than anything else. Although the margin between Jeff’s final score and mine was the two sites he discovered and defeating their guardians.

I did like how the blocking of some of the second spaces on the base camp spots in the three player game is random.

I did get some cool extra card draw going on, and at times despite there being fewer rounds than Imperium felt that I was doing more on my turns.

Jeff asked if the deck building side was more important in Imperium than Lost Ruins. And I think it is. Or more like it has a bigger emphasis. Although I do like how new cards in Lost Ruins are added to the bottom of your deck, so they come into play quicker.

The scores were much closer this time with Jeff still winning and starting his undefeated run with the game. Sadly I still managed to come last with a slightly better score than the first play.

Final score for Lost Ruins of Arnak

We finished off the afternoon with a game of Love Letter 2nd edition. Which was another new game to Julie. But this is soooo much quicker to teach.

The second edition is an update by Asmodee after taking over Love Letter from AEG. It increases the max player count from 4 to 6 players. The tokens have been upgraded from wooden cubes to plastic disks, and new art. Plus to accommodate the extra player count there are more cards, from 16 to 21. Which also sees some new characters/cards.

Firstly the number of guards has increased from 5 copies to 6. Two copies of new card The Spy (value 0) wins you a point if you were the only player to play or discard a spy during the round. Which is a pretty cool additional way to win that extra point each round. Finally there are two copies of the Chancellor (value 6) allows you to draw two new cards, add those to your hand, then place two cards of your choice on the bottom of the deck. It’s an interesting card. Great for burying a card and finding one you want.

Love Letter 2nd Edition

At the end of the day it’s still Love Letter and still great fun. Although this version will replace the first edition, especially when we want to make use of the higher player count. It doesn’t come close to knocking Love Letter: Batman off its perch as my favourite version of Love Letter.

Final scores for Love Letter 2nd Edition

As you can see Julie won, and once again I came last.

Despite coming last in both games I had a good time. It was exactly what I needed. However the heavy rain as we were leaving wasn’t! A big thank you to Jeff and Julie for taking the time out of busy weekend schedules to play some board games.

Dune Imperium

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Yesterday Jonathan and I met up for a learning game of Dune Imperium at The Luxe. It was also a chance to use the new 4ft diameter round table I got for club use.

I’m not going to write much about this as I’m not really in the mood for obvious reasons.

Ideally Dune Imperium should be played by 3 or 4 players. However it does have a deck of cards to provide an AI for a simulated third player (this is also used in solo play as well). There is also a free app that can be used instead of the cards. The app does the heavy lifting of shuffling the deck and interrupting what each card does. And that is what we used in our play.

Photos taken by Jonathan

All I’m going to say is I liked Dune Imperium, and not just because I won.

At the moment I’m processing a lot of guilt over being away from Nan for a couple of hours gaming. It’s during this time that she passed away in her sleep. I know even if I’d been there I couldn’t have done anything.

My only comfort is that the fur balls were with her. They have been her guardian angels since we got them.

Any way the posts will be infrequent for a while I think.

Commanding Rivals

Commander, Game day, magic, MtG, Rivals, Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, vampire the masquerade: rivals

This morning three people gathered to duke it out on the battlefield with their chosen commanders.

It was a casual smack down using WotC Commander precon decks. I had all the precon decks from 2017 to now with me (except the anthology decks) for us to play with.

Gavin was using his own precon, while Diego and myself chose from the recent D&D ones. My precons were “naked”! I have 3 years worth of precons to sleeve. Which is a lot of decks, and I need to find the funds to purchase the Dragon Shields to do the job.

Here are the commanders we played.

  • Me – Vrondriss, Rage of Ancients (D&D precon)
  • Diego – Galea, Kindler of Hope (D&D precon)
  • Gavin – Adrix and Nev, Twincasters (Strixhaven precon)

Early on Diego established himself as a big threat. His Commander with a couple of nasty bits of equipment that gave it +10/+10 and double strike was scary. One hit death to Commander damage if it landed. Thank god there was no trample added to it.

I was way behind both of them on the land drops. So I was happy for Diego to be the big distraction as I tried to catch up and build up a winning board state (see the photo above). All I needed was to be able to chump block if attacked by him.

Luckily there were very few answers for them both to stop my flyers chipping away at them or stop me using direct damage to control their board state (ie remove potential blockers or sending Diego’s Commander to hell). It was also lucky that Diego wasn’t able to give his equipped Commander hexproof. That would have made life extremely difficult.

But in the end the dragon horde prevailed and won the game.

Next up was a learning game of Vampire the Masquerade: Rivals.

We played using the pre-constructed decks. I gave Gavin and Diego first choice and I played what was left. Below is who played what.

  • Brujah – me (rival was Gavin)
  • Toreador – Gavin (rival was Diego)
  • Ventrue – Diego (rival was me)

After a poor explanation of the rules and picking our rival we started playing.

Our first play was definitely a game of two conflicting experiences.

Gavin didn’t enjoy the game at all. He was polite and put it down to the cards he drew, and there being little he could do to make use of his clans abilities. I don’t think the poor rules explanation helped either.

I’m sure there were more rule misplays than the one we had. Well technically it wasn’t a misplay more missed rule! We missed that you could discard cards during the torpor/mend stage to heal vampires. Which would have kept Gavin in the game instead of seeing me win it. Thanks Diego for spotting that after the fact and casting a shadow over my glorious victory.

The Brujah deck I was playing was probably the simpler deck to play compared to the Toreador deck Gavin was trying to play. It is the Rivals version of a MtG aggro deck. Which is definitely one of the deck archetypes I like to play.

When Diego played Long-Term Investment I got a distinct Netrunner vibe and reminded of cards like Kati Jones.

Like Netrunner there is a lot of jargon to get used to, especially if you are not into the whole Worlds of Darkness thing. Which can add to the confusion and make the learning curve a bit more steeper than it already is.

So while Gavin won’t be playing Rivals again Diego and myself will be. I need to play the other decks. And then want to get into deck building.

But once again it was great to be playing in real life again. Especially when I win. Plus there is more gaming to look forward to at the end of the week.