Category Archives: game night

game night

All good things

D&D, game night, RPG

Jumping straight into the action this time, the first part will follow in a separate post.

The rag tag band of misfits were still reeling from the shock of Sarmyars’ disappearance as they ate breakfast.

They broke camp and after a very brief discussion headed off in the general direction of where they believe the gnolls to be.

It wasn’t long before they reached the Neverwinter river again. Once again Dram Misty Stepped across to the opposite side of the river. He wanted to be in a prime spot to watch the hilarity that was bound to happen as the others tried crossing.

It was kind of disappointing, if Ace hadn’t been caught by Grull there would have definitely had been a belly laugh or two from Ace stumbling into the river.

Once everyone was across Ace and Grull spotted Sarmyar in the tree line. Grull grabbed her. Then she wasn’t Sarmyar. It was very confusing. The interrogation by those two wasn’t very good. Dram decided to help out by using shocking grasp on the stranger. He placed a hand on the stranger mumbled the words of the cantrip and it just sparked and nothing happened.

The next thing Dram knew he was up in the air and floating over the middle of the river. There was only one thing to do Misty Step to safety in the trees. Dram disappeared and reappeared in the trees hidden from the others. He had been taken by surprise. Yes that was it. It’s the only explanation he had for how the stranger had managed to levitate him over the river. He pondered what to cast next in retaliation. This was a magic users battle for top dog spot.

While that was going on Grull asked the group to vote on if the stranger could join them. Nick tried to change the vote to one about leaving Dram behind. So from his hiding spot Dram fires a ray of frost at Nick’s butt. It hit freezing Nick’s butt.

After all the excitement and magic pissing match the group head off once again in the direction of the gnolls.

Eventually after working their way through trees and undergrowth they came across a gnoll guard. Dram and the newest member of the group Darcy fired off magic missiles timed to hit as Ace was about to strike the gnoll with his axes. The gnoll slumped to the ground moments after the magic missiles hit.

The group then came across three more gnolls in a clearing that looked like the remains of an old abandoned temple. One of the gnolls was standing on top of an altar with a bow.

Darcy tried putting the other two gnolls asleep with a sleep spell. Succeeding with one of them. The party attacked the other two standing gnolls.

In the confusion of battle Dram fired off magic missiles at the gnolls. One such volley killed the gnoll on the alter.

While the the battle raged on, the alter flared up and where a dead gnoll once was stood a reborn gnoll. But this was no ordinary gnoll, it was a lot bigger. It leaped of the alter and joined in the heat of the battle.

Blows were traded, magic cast and eventually the gnolls were dispatched. When the large gnoll died it burst into flames burning those around it, leaving just a pile of ashes.

While the others examined the alter, Dram looted what he assumed had been the head gnoll. His rummaging through the remains and possessions of the corpse turned up a couple of sapphires. Result.

Dram then called Grull over to see if any of the weapons and armour were any use to Grull. It turned out some of it was.

After the others did the repulsive job of cutting off evidence that the gnolls had been killed for the reward. The group headed into the trees to set up camp for the night.

As dawn approached Dram was was sitting on a stump wrapped in his fur blanket, cuddling his glass staff, lost in thought.

“I bet Sarmyar is having a boring time without me.” With that thought lingering in his head Dram mumbled some words and disappeared.

Offering your protection to the captain

game night

Last night with the help of Diego and Jeff, my all time favourite game Scythe hit the table.

For our session last night I used the official play mat and the Scythe Encounters expansion. I could have just shuffled in these new encounters with the old ones. But then we wouldn’t have been guaranteed to have seen any of them. So for this game we played with just the new cards. We were also playing with the Wind Gambit expansion. But only using the airships. Decided not to use the resolutions module this time.

We opted for randomly selecting our factions. Which saw Jeff get my favourite faction Rusviet. Diego pulled Nordic. Whilst I got Polania.

After finishing set up (I’d done a lot of it before the others had arrived) we spent 20 minutes refreshing our memories over the rules. It has been much to my shame a year since I’d last had the game to the table. And that’s despite the excuse of the new expansions coming out. I could make excuses as to why this amazing game hasn’t been played more often. But after last night I no longer have one of the main ones. It just needs calendars to align now, and a max player count of 4.

I have to admit my first couple or so Encounter cards I was real happy I had the Polania faction ability. Being able to chose upto 2 of the options was sweet. These new cards are fun.

I really liked the new cards. I had one that allowed my character to move to the factory if it wasn’t occupied. Hitting that early on was a great bonus. I had first pick of the factory cards.

Although there was a little “discussion” about the wording of one card.

The situation was as follows. I wanted to move my mech into a space that had one of Diego’s workers in and some tasty resources I wanted to steal. As indicated by the red arrow in the photo below.

However…

Earlier on in the game I had drawn the Encounter card below. I did the bottom option Hijack the airship obviously. I also did the Offer Your Protection To The Captain option (highlighted in photo below) choosing Diego.

So I couldn’t attack Diego. Which I interrupted as not doing combat. So I couldn’t move my mech into a space with a mech or character that belonged to him, and start a combat. Whilst Diego interrupted attack to also include moving a mech into a space with his worker.

We made our cases for our points of view. And to settle the impasse we let Jeff make the final decision. With the promise that whatever the judgement we would be hitting the internet later to determine the correct answer.

But the question is who was right? Does moving a mech into a space with an opponents worker in count as an attack?

I’ll update the post later today or leave a comment with the results of my internet search for the answer.

I should mention that the official neoprene play mat is beautiful. A perfect size for the game, and really high quality with stitching on the edges.

We had a blast playing Scythe. I was first loser, with Diego winning. However the gap between Jeff and myself was only 2 points.

A great evening playing an amazing game with some great friends (still no curry night invite Jeff!!!) at a great location.

UPDATE: I found this thread on bgg which would seem to back up my interpretation of attack and combat. And therefore means that Diego’s victory is disputed, as history would have been different. And I have the more important moral victory.

A couple of gaming sessions last week

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last Wednesday stood out from the other Wednesdays that occur during March by being the second Wednesday of the month.

That was an important distinction, because the second Wednesday of each month just so happens to be the monthly meet up for our gaming group Fenland Gamers.

Games that hit the table that night were Reykholt, Wingspan and Perudo/Liars Dice.

It was great to have a good turn out (for us) of 7. On the whole our monthly meet ups tend to be our best attended meet ups. With the Friday fortnightly meet up usually getting three or four people turning up.

According to the Facebook club page we have 107 members. But as the above paragraph implies very few active/participating members.

We’ve tried different days for the sessions, based on feed back from members. But they have seen lower attendance. Often with the members who suggested the particular day not attending.

I think if my maths is correct our current home for playing is our fourth since the clubs birth. We’ve been lucky and found generous hosts that have allowed us to game for free. The locations have been a school, pub, hotel and currently a cinema. All with free parking, and no charge to attend (it’s part of the groups dna not to charge for attending).

So it makes us wonder just exactly how do we improve engagement/attendance?

Anyway last week was a good week for gaming. Not only was it the monthly meet up, but there was also a Friday evening gaming session.

The evening started off with a game of Via Nebula. This time we played with the more advanced side of the board. Still a quick, fun game.

But the big story of the evening a new member turned up with their copy of Tokyo Highway. Jonathan had been keen on playing this game. The name hadn’t rung any bells with me. But when he described it, the penny dropped. I’d seen photos/posts of Facebook but not really paid attention to them or the name of the game.

As the amount of photos I took shows visually this game is great table top theatrics. It looks fun and chaotic at the same time.

I may be wrong, but I think this might be the first dexterity game to hit the table at a game night.

I liked this a lot. It was a blast to play. The rules are pretty simple. But there is a bit of depth involved. You are planning your turn and adjusting your plans before your turn based on the actions of those before you. Trying to optimise that scoring opportunity.

The fact you basically have two modes to the game as well is also nice. The basic set up and the more advanced that uses obstacles as well.

Plus I won the first game, and was first loser in our second.

A very big thank you to The Luxe Cinema and it’s amazing staff for once hosting us last week.

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen

game night

“Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men
Feared by the bad, loved by the good
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood”

And that quote shows my age. But even as I write this post that song is playing in my head. I suppose I could easily have also made reference to Robin Hood: Men in Tights or that Bryan Adams song that blighted my younger years and the music charts (when they actually mattered) from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves.

Wednesday evening saw Jeff, Diego, Jonathan and myself meet up for a rare gaming session together. Life had been throwing barriers to the band getting together since we had to put a break on playing Charterstone together. But this session could be the start that means we can continue our journey and that campaign.

Earlier in the day I dropped a less than subtle hint that maybe we could learn Diego’s latest addition to his collection Robin Hood and the Merry Men. This was a game that Diego had backed on kickstarter and got just before Christmas.

I have to say the production values of this game are amazing. I’m not sure how much of this is in the edition you’d get from your FLGS or online. But certainly as a kickstarter edition with the metal coins, the painted character meeples, metal first player token, extra heroes (which I hope are available out side of the kickstarter) and the player boards that are a nice thickness with recesses in for the traps and barricades.

This was a traditional learning game for us. Meaning we were reading from the rule book as we went along.


We did have a time constraint on our game. Our hosts for the evening needed us finished by 9pm for reasons. Starting at 7pm meant we had 2 hours to learn and play the game.

It took us about 30 mins to set up and go through the rules. Which felt a long time, even for us. There is a lot going on in this game.

But that meant we had approximately one and a half hours to play the game.

Now this was a learning game, so play was slower than if we knew what we were doing. The rule book was being referred to regularly, points being clarified etc.

In that time we had, we only managed to complete two full rounds.

There is a hell of a lot going on in this game. It’s a semi co-operative competitive worker placement game! I think that summarises the game play. You definitely can all lose the game. However there can only be one winner. But you are all working together to stop the game winning.

I don’t think considering the circumstances it’s fair to pass judgement on the game. There was definitely enough there to warrant playing the game again. The session we had can really be looked on as a taster. The sort of thing you’d get at an expo.

It was great to spend time playing with my friends. Our hosts were great as usual.

Buildings in the mist

Fenland Gamers, game night

I have four Martin Wallace games in my collection. But only one of them hadn’t been played before.

Via Nebula had been on my radar a while before it finally joined my collection last year. An opportunity to get a second hand copy for a bargain price cropped up on the Facebook page I hang out on. I say hang out, more lurk waiting for bargains to appear.

Last night at the fortnightly Friday meet up of Fenland Gamers (hosted once again by the ever generous The Luxe Cinema) after nearly a year sitting on the shelf gathering dust, it finally had a moment in the spotlight.

As usual for us, this was a learning game. I had watched a rules video briefly during the afternoon, and scanned the rule book. So I felt I had a good grasp of the basic ideas and flow of the game. Specifics could be dealt with as we played.

Set up is a doddle. We used the basic side of the board as recommended for first plays.

The headline is we loved the game. Three of use playing the game for the first time, learnt the game and finished it in under an hour.

The rules really are simple and quick to learn. On your turn you get two actions to take from five available things you can do. Although one of those options takes two actions to do.

I really do like the combination of route building and pick up and deliver. You get some really difficult decisions to make. Because you might want to place a meadow tile to open up a path you need to get a resource back to your building site. But by doing so it also benefits your opponents. Possibly giving them a route they can use to get a resource they need back to their building site.

The same goes for exploiting resources. It’s these decisions that make the game more tactical and have more depth than first impressions give with such simple rules.

It’s nice that the points scored by completing contracts and exploiting resources is hidden. It’s nice having that bit of mystery.

There is a lot of replay ability in the game. The random position of resources during set up, the random private contracts, and deck of open contracts. No two games will be the same.

Via Nebula is a fun game that will definitely be coming to the table again. Despite Jonathan wining the game.

We finished off the evening with a couple of games of Batman Love Letter. The honours were split between The Usual Suspect and myself.

It’s getting a bit cliched but we had a great evening gaming, at a fantastic host The Luxe Cinema.

All Hail King Grull

D&D, game night, RPG


I don’t know when or how Matthew Colville first popped into the stuff Youtube recommends to me. I do remember that it was his reaction/explanation video for some key twist/event in the climax of Critical Roll season one.

A brief aside I’m not a fan of Critical Roll. I think it presents an unrealistic view and expectations of the majority of RPG sessions. Not every group is made up of voice actors, and all that over theatrical stuff.

Back to Matthew Colville. On his channel he has a series of videos giving advice to DMs both new and old. Which I’ve been dipping into, watching episodes that catch my interest.

I think it’s the opening video in the series where he creates a starting adventure off the top of his head. It’s impressive and demonstrates his decades of experience. It also looks like a nice little dungeon to use at the start of a campaign with new players. And from what I can tell has been run by a lot of folks.

However from all the videos I have watched so far, and enjoyed I decided to share the following one. It’s about sandbox campaigns. Colville has done another discussing on rails vs sandbox. I fall on the side of sandboxes. Hence why I’m sharing the video. But there are also a few links to adventures that he uses to seed his sandbox world. So it’s an amazing resource for those looking into running their own sandbox campaign. I’m a particularly new fan/convert to the Dungeon Delve and Book of Challenges. They look fantastic resources for a GM.

Sadly for an Android campaign doing something similar using existing published adventures isn’t going to happen. At best there will be that GenCon/Pax Unplugged two parter. So to do something similar would require a lot more work.

A Judge Dredd sandbox campaign on the other hand using suitable existing adventures as Colville has for D&D is do able. Before this latest Judge Dredd system using the WOIN came out, there were three other systems with their own supplements and adventures. So more material to work with.

So after that it’s about time we find out what Dram has been up to.

Gundren the dwarf was lying on the floor of the room in pretty bad shape.

“The dwarf needs healing!” shouted Dram.

But his words fell on deaf ears.

Dram tried once more to get the dwarf the help he desperately needed. But the other members of the party were wrapped up in their own petty little interests to listen or help.

Disgusted with the others Dram wandered off back to the hall where he had roasted the group of goblins. Leaving the dwarf to an uncertain future. He wasn’t happy about it. Dram had done all he could to help the dwarf. But healing wasn’t in his skill set. He had no potions or spells. He was a wizard not a Druid.

On his way to the hall Dram witnesses Ace lock Nick in a small room. “That was more important than helping the dwarf?” muttered Dram to no-one in particularly and shaking his head.

In the hall at the far end the charred remains of goblins littered the floor near to the blockage that Dram and Grull had created. But despite that burnt smell of goblin flesh wafting round the room, his nose hadn’t let him down. In the opposite corner to the bodies near to where he had entered the hall was a large pot of stew cooking.

Dram grabbed a spoon, dipped it in the pot. Tentatively Dram tasted the contents. It wasn’t the best stew he’d tasted, but it was not the worst either. It was edible whatever the mystery meat used was. He tucked in. Maybe a full stomach will easy his disgust at his companions.

After eating his fill of stew. Dram decided he better share the rest with the others.

On his way back to the others in the hall way there was an owl bear! It was a fleeting glimpse of this beautiful creature before it disappeared behind a curtain.

He had just seen an owl bear! He was surely one of the luckiest halflings ever.

Once the initial shock had worn off. dram shouted “I saw an owl bear!!!!”

The gnome and Sarmyar joined Dram in the hall way. The gnome wanted to get some food but was too scared to go by himself. But Dram wanted to see the owl bear again, so he went behind the curtain moments before that the owl bear had disappeared behind. The other two joined him.

The room they entered was empty. No sign of the owl bear. However in the outer wall was a gap leading to the outside. Dram reasoned it must have escaped the keep that way.

Back in the room where the wounded dwarf had been left, Dram was pleasantly surprised to see the dwarf back on his feet and looking a bit healthier than he had been.

Everyone was now back in the room with them. Including an unconscious Nick.

After short rest, a battered Nick was back on his feet.

A brief discussion was held on what to do next. Did the group rest so they were in better shape for the journey back to Phandaline, or did they set off immediately and risk the open road? Resting first won out. But Sarmyar decided to head off on her own.

The party returned back to the hall to eat and rest.

Early evening bought a surprise. As the sun set a war-band returned from it’s patrol.

As the war-band approached the keep, Grull came up with a cunning plan of negotiating with the war-band. It was risky, but it just might work.

Back in the room where the bugbear had been, and the dwarf had been found, Grull wearing the crown of the bugbear, sat on the throne. Declaring himself the king of the keep. On one side of the throne stood the gnome, hidden in the corner of the room was Ace. Nick was hiding in the side room. And Dram was on the other side of Grull ready to cast a spell.

Three hobgoblins and a couple of wolves entered the keep and blocked the doorway to the room.

Grull and the leader of the war-band parley. Apparently the previous occupants were not that popular with the war-band, and there was very little loyalty towards them. An agreement is arrived at despite the clumsiness of Ace dropping a hobgoblin head on the floor.

The war-band would get the keep, and the crown. And the party would leave without any trouble. Everyone was a winner.

The journey back to Phandaline was uneventful. They met up again with Sarmyar just outside of town.

In Phandaline Dram went back to his room at the inn, and ordered food and drink delivered to his room. Whilst in his room he sat at his table, opened up his spell book and started writing down some new spells.

He was feeling more powerful…

Super Casual Friday Night Gaming

Fenland Gamers, game night

Whaaaaat?! Another Friday evening gaming session at The Luxe Cinema? No way. It’s like this is a regular thing or something!

We knew Ollie was going to be late. So Love Letter: Batman (the best version of the game beyond any doubt, and if you disagree you are wrong) hit the table to pass away the time until his arrival.

The Usual Suspect easily won the game. At times unnaturally guessing Jonathan’s card on the very first play of the round. Luckily I managed to score one token before the inevitable victory. Sadly for Jonathan he didn’t, and was left with a big fat zero points.

We’d just finished the first round of game two with the opening point going once again to the Usual Suspect, when Ollie arrived. So we dealt him in and explained the rules to him.

This second game was a game of two halves. The first half was Jonathan trailing behind on the token front and slowly catching up, then over taking everyone to reach six tokens. We then entered the second half, where Jonathan just sat there on six tokens, and I come from behind to catch up with Jonathan and snatch victory from him.

I can’t remember at which point I did the following but it just seemed the right and funny thing to do at the time. In one of the rounds Ollie played Catwoman and chose me, so he asked to see my hand. So I stretched out my right arm, and waved my hand at him. Accompanied with “there you go”. Oh did we all laugh. Sometimes being literal can be a hoot.

Our next game of the evening was Heckmeck am Bratwurmeck. Jonathan went over the rules for Ollie whilst I topped up my beverage supply.

This ended up as a two horse race between Ollie and Jonathan. Early on Ollie didn’t look like he was in the running, whilst Jonathan looked like he was going to run away with the victory. But from nowhere Ollie started amassing points, while the Usual Suspect and I tussled for last place.

Ollie Ollie timed his come back perfectly and once again Jonathan had had victory snatched from under his nose.

A pattern for the evening was starting to emerge.

Our final game of the evening was Perudo. It is my sad duty to report to the long time sufferers of this blog that I was knocked out first. Or to put it another way, I was last. The final head to head was between the Usual Suspect and Jonathan. Can you guess which way the game went? Yep Jonathan grasped defeat and gave it a big huge hug.

After a surprise evening of just light filler type games, we had a great evening of gaming at a superb host. Topped off with the customary greasy dodgy meat with lashings of chilli sauce and shredded green stuff.

Blue Moons, Tea Houses and Tree Spirits

game night

A monthly meet up the night before one of the most commercial and manufactured nights of the year, probably wasn’t going to get many people to attend. But that’s the advantage of hindsight.

Last weekend it was looking like it was just myself and The Usual Suspect that had committed to go. Honestly I didn’t fancy an evening gaming with him. Longtime sufferers of this blog know all about The Usual Suspect by now. It wouldn’t be an enjoyable time. So I cancelled the February meet up.

Then a couple of days before the cancelled date Gavin contacted me asking if the monthly meet up had been cancelled. Which I confirmed it had. In response I was asked if I was free that night and if I wanted to meet up and play some games. Naturally I was (I have no life after all). So we made arrangements to meet up.

Our first game of the evening was Blue Moon Legends. Neither of us had played the game before. It had only been in my collection less than 6 months, when a chance to buy a second hand copy, still sealed, at a bargain price came up on Facebook. It would have been rude not to snap the game up.

The thing I liked about this game before I had got it, and was a major attraction, everything you needed for the game was in the box. It came with 8 decks, and rules to construct and draft decks from that card pool.

Gavin and I played with the recommended starting decks for learning the game.

I loved the tug of war element for attracting the dragons. And how if you win a dragon and your opponent has more than one, you move one of them to the middle before you get to add one to your side.

The hand management is interesting, and really comes into it’s own when you get down to the last remaining cards of your deck. No cards in hand or your deck is an end condition. That looks at who has the most dragons. So you could use that to your advantage to prematurely end the game and grab the win.

The two games we played had a nice back and forth between the two decks. And it never felt that there was a run away winner, with no chance of coming back into the game.

Once you get used to the turn structure, the game flows nicely. And a nice touch is the summary of the main parts of a turn on the central game board. That game board is a nice alternative to a single big play mat or two play mats. It clearly marks where the deck goes, the discard pile, leaders, etc.

The plastic minis for the contested dragons are cool.

I just love that a friend and I who fancy playing a two player card game, can pick this up and play straight away. Everything we could ever need is in there. Pre-constructed decks – check, draft – check, deck construction – check. I know especially with the constructed side, and pre-constructed decks there is a finite replay ability. But it’s still a lot of game play. The only other game I have in my collection that is really as flexible as this, and in away is similar in idea, is Epic the Card Game.

Despite Gavin winning both games, I had fun playing this.

Next up it was time to take Gavin to the tea houses and play Hanamikoji. We played 5 games of this. But then it is a quick game. Apart from the first game that Gavin won, all the rest went to a second round. This presented Gavin with a mental block he struggled to overcome. For me in the second round words like attacking and defending start popping into my head. If Gavin currently has the gheisha’s favour I’m attacking it, if I have it I’m defending it. When defending I just need to make sure I match my opponent, because ownership doesn’t change on a tie, whilst trying to get the upper hand on the ones he controls. And that’s how I’m evaluating the situation.

We finished the evenings gaming with the recently delivered Kickstarter Kodama Duo (which is also just hitting the shops now too).

This is the 2 player version of Kodama (which could play 2 iirc). Basically they have tweaked the game to make it a better 2 player experience. But if you have Kodama, you can use this with that as well.

After a false start (we were scoring incorrectly) we started growing our trees, and attracting Kodama.

I like the I split, you chose mechanic for drafting your branches each round. That’s a nice improvement. Plus the person who only got one card gets a spirit token after scoring to replace a symbol on one of their branches.

Through out our play Gavin and I were fairly evenly matched on the score front. It was only the last scoring kodama that gave me the win.

I liked the original. This is just as nice as the original. It still looks beautiful on the table. Yeah a nice 2 player only version of the game.

So that was the second Wednesday. Some 2 player games, (which let’s face it often get left on the shelf on game nights, and need opportunities like this to play them) with a great friend. And hosted as usual by our excellent hosts The Luxe Cinema.

Exhausted but fighting on!

D&D, game night, RPG


I hope you have enjoyed the last couple of days of no posts happening. For you dear suffering readers the positive side of me being ill for a couple of days. Sadly as this post shows I’m back.

The astute amongst you will have noticed I’ve been doing posts recently about planning a RPG campaign and in a soon to be finished and published post plotting an adventure.

I thought in this first half of this post I’d share the tools/apps I’ve been using in getting ready for my first time as a GM and the Android universe.

I’m a fan of both the physical and digital versions of books. So for the digital side I use the two most popular apps for ebooks the Kindle app and iBooks. DrivethruRpg is a great source of RPG books and their digital format of choice is the watermarked pdf. I use iBooks mainly for pdfs. For me it’s the better experience for the consumption of a pdf than the Kindle app.

The advantage of the digital version of a book is it’s easier for me to create my own custom cheat sheets. I can copy and paste the information I need. Plus I find it’s easier to print a page from the ebook than photocopy a page from the physical book.

This is why PDF Expert is included here. It enables me to manipulate and extract information from a pdf. It also allows me to select pages from the original and create a separate pdf with the pertinent pages for printing, and keeping for future reference.

I’m a big fan of brainstorming apps. That’s why iThoughts (mindmaps), Outliner (outlines) and GoodNotes (general note taking with an Apple Pencil) are here. These are the apps I capture ideas and plan.

Scrivener is a writing app. It is focused on writing, but it’s a very flexible app that works round projects, which can have research notes within the project. This is where the adventure gets written. The research functionality is amazing, and being able to include or not include sections is really handy.

I’ve included MS Word here, but it could also be Pages. This is the app I use for creating my custom cheat sheets.

Finally I’ve included Pixelmator for any image manipulation that’s needed. This really is one of my favourite apps. It makes it look like a can create graphics.

I have recently found a couple of apps for creating dungeon maps randomly which I need to play with. Once I have I’ll talk about them here. I know my friend Edmund, and the GM for the D&D 5e campaign I’m playing in uses his autodesk expertise to create the maps we get to use in our sessions (which are rather good). So I’ve downloaded the iPad version of it to play with.

Finally before we get onto the dramatic retelling of last nights shenanigans FFG are looking at character creation with in Shadow of the Beanstalk (the Genesys source book for the Android universe) this week along with the taster scenario. People that pre-ordered directly from FFG are starting to receive their copies. Although not shown on this weeks sheet for new releases that Asmodee UK, one or two are saying it’s available tomorrow (Thursday). But I tend to think more likely that it will drop next week. However this wouldn’t be the first time something gets released that is not on the sheet. So basically Shadow of the Beanstalk due out any day now.

And now we rejoin Dram and the rag tag team he is currently having adventures with…

Feeling magically spent. Dram really felt like he could do with a long rest to recoup.

But considering there was still unknown threats in the rest of the unexplored castle the likely hood of that happening were very remote.

He’d have to push on through the exhaustion and use his cantrips as much as he can to back up the others. They’d just have to accept that is all he had left at the moment. No big theatrical spells to save the rests butts for the time being.

After a very brief discussion the party started to move through the rest of the castle room by room. Ace would first check any closed door, and listen for any signs of danger the other side of the door.

This started off well, Dram was hanging back, Ace was taking the risks.

Ace disappeared into one room that turned out to be a chapel only to be ambushed by three goblins. Dram in his exhausted state was happy to let the others rush in and help Ace out and nullify the goblin threat.

Once the sounds of battle stopped Dram joined the rest in the chapel. The group made their way to the far end of the chapel and the unblocked door.

Ace again repeated the drill of checking the door. Despite the gnome having already checked it. Ace could be heard mumbling under his breathe something about being better at it than the short arse.

The party piled into a small hallway. As Dram was examining a curtain over what looked like a door way. A scream of immense agony could be heard coming from the chapel. It was Nick. He had been attacked.

The others once again rushed into the chapel to help Nick. Before doing the same Dram peaked behind the curtain to make sure there would be no surprises coming from that direction.

Dram joined the fray. Surrounded by the party in the middle was a grey stone coloured serpent like creature with four tentacles surrounding its beak. It was a Grick. A Grick caught in the mouth of a dire wolf. Nick had gone all canine on it. Dram used Grull as cover as he tried to use his cantrip shocking grasp on the Grick. His hand sparked blue and just as quickly faded away. The cantrip failed to connect.

Before Dram had another chance to try again with the shocking grasp the Grick was dispatched by the rest of the party.

Back in the hall way Ace checked another door and heard voices the other side of it.

Unusual for Ace he stepped back and prepared himself to attack anything that appeared from behind the door.

Dram pushed open the door and stood back out of the way.

Suddenly a hobgoblin appeared in the door way. There was a sudden flash of metal as Ace swung in and killed it.

A whoosh of air could be heard as Sarmyar let lose an arrow through the open door into the room. Closely followed by the javelin of Grull.

The party rushed into the room, jumping over the hobgoblin corpse. In the room was a fat goblin and a seriously wounded hobgoblin. The hobgoblin was quickly killed by adventurers. But the fat goblin was sneakier than expected and disappeared off behind a curtain door. Ace gave chase. Throwing caution to the wind, not waiting for back up.

Back up (minus Nick would had decided to stay behind in the room with the hobgoblin corpses) finally caught up with Ace in a small hallway. Just as he disappeared into a room. The whelps of a wolf could be heard from the room.

As the back up bundled in to back up Ace, they were greeted with the scene of Ace standing over a badly wounded wolf, a disgruntled bugbear, the fat goblin and a seriously injured dwarf laying on the floor.

Sarmyar’ s panther attacked the fat goblin, while Grull and the gnome took on the bugbear. Once again Dram used Grull as a shield as he used his Ray of Frost cantrip to attack the badly wounded wolf.

In all the confusion that is combat, another enemy used that confusion to it’s advantage to attack the party from its hiding place. It was a female Drow.

As the wolf was killed by a particularly effective bolt of ice from Dram’s cantrip, Ace was knocked to the ground badly injured by the Drow. Before the bugbear followed its pet wolf to the next world, it took the gnome out.

It was at this point that the Drow decided to make a run for it. She grabbed a parchment off a small table in front of Dram and made for the door. However her escape was blocked off by Nick and Sarmyar. The Drow was soon surrounded by the party. Sarmyar grabbed the parchment off her, while a ropey Ace, blade to her throat tried to interrogate her. With no answers forthcoming Ace took revenge on the Drow by slitting her throat.

While this was going on Dram administered a healing potion to the downed gnome that had been given to him by Ace.

And that is where we leave our adventurers for another week.

Can I Play With Madness

Fenland Gamers, game night

It was cold walking from the car to The Luxe. A definite nip in the air. I was kinda glad I had my big boy trousers on, and not my usual cargo shorts.

There were four of us due to meet up for the evenings gaming session.

We started off our gaming for the evening with Wingspan. That’s three sessions in a row now that this has hit the table. And once again one of the players was new to the game. Which I’ve not seen as being a disadvantage when playing so far. A testament to how good the design of the game is.

All four of the end of round objectives were eggs on nest based. Which guided my choice of bonus cards at the start. It tied in with one of the objectives nicely.

My woodland habitat was in MtG/Commander terminology a care bear or group hug line. I had a couple of when activated abilities that benefited everyone by giving them a resource as well as myself.

My grasslands habitat was a nice little egg laying engine, while my wetlands was a single bird that gave me a little extra card draw.

Jonathan’s first round was very confusing to me, he had accumulated a lot of resources, had one bird in his reserve. It looked like he was going to be playing a few birds in the second round. But at that point it felt like he was behind on the engine front when comparing his board state with everyone else’s.

Through the four rounds I was either first of second on the end of round objectives. My last round was triggering my egg laying and amassing points that way. It was worth five points each time, and for a couple of activations six. However my last action was wasted because I had no more space left to lay eggs, no resources or birds in hand to play a bird. So I accumulated some resources just in case of a tie breaker was needed. It also meant I didn’t get any extra eggs when The Usual Suspect triggered his when activated ability. So I also missed out on points there.

After the dust settled and the final tally was completed, I was first loser. I had lost to The Usual Suspect by 3 points. Which was the extra eggs I missed out on. But for the want of having an extra bird in my reserve to place eggs on I would have won.

Our second and final game of the evening was Lovecraft Letter. Earlier in the day I had finally opened and sleeved my copy of the game. At that moment in time I looked at the rule book to see what was different in this version to the others I had played. Mechanically it sounded very interesting, and I thought I’d take it along with me to the evenings gaming.

I knew Jonathan wouldn’t be a big fan of the theme. It’s not his thing. Which is fair enough. When selecting games to take along to play things like this have to be taken into account.

I like what Lovecraft LoveLetter brings to the table with the sanity mechanic. It brings some new decisions to make to the game, and win conditions.

Having to make a choice between going insane or keeping your sanity during the round is nice. However as Jonathan pointed out, that choice may be taken away from you if you start off with a card that has the sanity mark on it, and then draw a similar card. You have no choice but to go insane.

The sanity check at the start of your turn if you have lost your sanity is a nice push your luck element.

The benefit of losing your sanity is that on the cards with both a sane and insane option is that you can chose to do the more powerful insane option. It’s a risk reward choice. The more cards in your discard pile with the insane symbol the more cards you have to reveal on the sanity check. But you are doing more powerful actions, potentially if you get Cthulhu win the game. However you are more likely to be knocked out of the round, and need one more insane win than a player going for sane wins.

The component quality of the game, just like the Premium edition are out of this world. I really like the poker chips used to track round wins. They have a nice weight to them.

The art is for me on the right side of none offensive. With the Lovecraft theme it can be easy for a publisher to go dark. Which if they had would have made the game less appealing to a wider audience. It’s the right side of tasteful. More importantly I didn’t feel embarrassed or uncomfortable with Jonathan playing the game with the art on the cards.

However with the over sized cards and the larger really cool presented box (made to look like a book), along with the Premium edition. I do feel that these two editions have moved away from the micro game that fits in your pocket that you pull out and play at a moments notice.

Lovecraft Loveletter was the only outstanding version of Loveletter that we hadn’t played. It’s a nice addition to the family of games. Is it good enough to knock Loveletter: Batman off the top spot as my favourite? No. But it’s in the mix with The Hobbit and Archer editions.

Afterwards there was some gaming related discussion, where Jonathan reminded me that next weekend we are at the inaugural Alley Cat Games Con at their offices in Letchworth. Which I hadn’t forgotten about, but had for some reason not clicked was next weekend. I’m growing old. But take that as a warning about what you’ll be seeing on my social media and here next weekend.

We had a great evening of games. Awesome hosts in the form of The Luxe and the amazing staff.