Last night was the fortnightly club night. For the middle of Summer having eight folks turn up was pretty good.
On the table I was on we were learning and playing a four player game of Undergrove.
This was Charlene’s deluxe kickstarter edition.
Wow! The production on this deluxe edition is phenomenal.
The wooden tile holders in the shape of trees just take a beautiful looking game with an eye catching table presence to another level.
The tiles are I think wooden, beautiful artwork, really nice feel to them. The wooden mushroom first player marker is overkill but still impressive.
There is a great learn the game mode that takes each player through their first four turns. Each unique and doing something different. Then at the end of the fourth turn it gives you advice on your next turns.
I like the flow of the game with each player taking it in turn to do one of the possible actions. Plus it is possible with the right tile(s) out on the board to combo or get more than one action on your turn.
With several goal cards to choose from each game, and a reasonable number of tiles the replayability is there.
There is a bit of decision making and tactics involved in where you start to grow your trees. Its location, location, location. You have to factor in not just the points the tile will give you but also what action the tile will allow you and anyone else with roots on it to do. It’s almost like you are building an engine in plain view of everyone.
I will say the iconography took a few rounds to get used to. But once it clicks.
Yeah I liked the game (and not just because I won). I’d happily play this again. Would I add it to my collection? I’m not sure. It’d depend on how much the deluxe edition and the tree tile holders (they are a separate purchase) are. It’s the only edition of the game I’d want.
This time three of us could make it, so the plan was to have a game of Commander.
Dave was playing his Doctor Who deck. I played my Ninja deck. While Marcin played my Atraxa precon.
It really was Dave and Marcin vs me. I needed every trick in my deck to try and hold in and get to a winning position.
A position that never arrived.
Was I close? I don’t think so. I tried politicking to try and help me out. But the butt hurt Marcin still had from the weekend made that very hard.
Obviously I knew the main tactic of the Atraxa deck, and the proliferate was useful in delaying Dave getting his cards out for free using his time warp/suspend ability. I think the Doctors deck Dave was using had potential. With some suitable additions could be pretty good and fun.
That’s what I like about my ninja deck is it is a fun deck to play. Maybe not be on the receiving end of.
Marcin managed to get the win.
Next week the plan is to do a Dice Masters draft using draft packs from Tomb of Annihilation. A booster box had arrived earlier that day along with two campaign boxes. Recently Wizkids had a 50% off sale on Dice Masters stuff. So I took advantage of that sale to pick up a couple of things.
After what has seemed a famine when it comes to board gaming over the past few months.
It now seems like the complete opposite. I’m gorging myself on gaming.
Friday evening saw Marcin and I play a two player game of Ra. I’d recently picked up a Pharaoh edition of the game. Which is basically the thematic way to describe the deluxe edition of Ra.
The main difference as far as I’m aware between this fancy edition and the retail edition is metal coins and wooden/plastic tiles.
The production is out of this world. The Ra token is huge. The sun boat marker, epoch marker, sun dials are all wooden. The auction board and player boards are a good thickness. It’s obvious a lot of love has gone into the production of this game.
Friday evening gaming
As a two player game it worked, and was an enjoyable experience. However I need to play this at the higher player counts. I think the play experience will be completely different.
Sadly Marcin won.
For our second game of the evening we were joined by Anthony. The game was Ohanami.
I’ve been often a copy of this game ever since I hear about it in a Broken Meeple video. At the time I was unable to track down a copy. That was until about two weeks ago when I was just browsing through saved items in my Amazon basket and saw it was in stock. I clicked on the item to check my eyes weren’t deceiving me. The price was amazing. Just under £11 for this card game. I instinctively pressed buy it now.
If a purchase has not been a dice game, then it’s most likely been a trick taking or drafting game. I do seem to be into those two mechanics at the moment.
This was a great purchase.
Once more Marcin won. He was on track for a clean sweep.
Next Fuji Flush hit the table. I think I was the only one who hadn’t played it before. But I was glad I did. This purchase has been sitting in my game bag since purchasing.
The game was fun at its lowest player count. But like Ra I think Fuji Flush will be a different experience at the higher player counts. Maybe even better.
We managed to get two plays in. Marcin’s win streak was ended. With the honours being shared between Anthony and myself.
We finished off the evening (for me anyway, I left Anthony and Marcin playing some other game) with the game Haggis. I’m so glad this great trick taker is making it back to the table. Which is easier to do because it’s either a two or three player game. It’s the three player support that is enabling it to get some love.
Luckily I was able to end my evening on a win.
After that I headed home. I couldn’t be late home because I had work the next morning.
Sunday I went straight from work to game with Marcin, Anthony, and Jeff.
Our game for the afternoon was Steamwatchers.
I have to say I was pretty tired during the rules explanation and nearly fell asleep a couple of times. That was by no means an indictment of Marcin and his explaining of the rules.
But I did wake up. Or feel more awake after I purchased my usual beverage order and started playing.
Sunday afternoon gaming
The theme of Steamwatchers is a post apocalyptic one. This is Marcin’s favourite game theme.
There is very much a big influence from the game A Game of Thrones on Steamwatchers with the Dune combat system thrown in.
Early on both Jeff and I formed an alliance. We offered an alliance to Anthony as well. The aim was to focus on crushing Marcin. However Anthony made the error of joining forces with Marcin.
That meant Anthony had hostile forces either side of him. So Jeff and I jointly attacked Anthony from both sides, whilst Marcin just turtled. Yep Marcin threw Anthony under the bus in an attempt to build get enough points to win.
We had to cut the game short by one round due to the social club closing early. But it was a critical round.
I had planned to attack Anthony to try and grab a point off him. Like Dune Imperium a one point swing is huge. However he moved all of his forces out of my target space to attack me first. This was better than I had hoped. The base would be undefended. I didn’t bother winning the battle, my forces were sacrificed for the greater good. I couldn’t have him retreating back to the base.
My turns saw my train with troops swoop in and claim the undefended base and grab the point.
I also broke my alliance with Jeff to grab a last point by taking an undefended base with my last action.
Points were tallied and I had won.
Wow the banter, especially at the end. It was hilarious. Marcin was butt hurt, trying to deflect from his betrayal of Anthony. Remember those buses he let hit Anthony without doing anything?
It was a fun afternoon, a fun game, and great company.
Sadly neither Marcin or Diego were able to make the restart of the lcg/tcg/ccg night. But Dave was.
It’d been a long day for me. To be at work for 6am I need to get up at 4:30. Or 4:45 if I’m feeling particularly lazy. Having started at 6am, these last three days I’ve been finishing at 3pm.
After getting home just before 4pm, I had a bath and nearly fell asleep. Yeah I was that tired.
I threw the two starter sets you can get for Star Wars Unlimited (SWU) into a bag along with thetwo player game mat.
After pleasantries, getting refreshments, and having to apologise for the very poor quality of the starter set components (they are shocking) we chose our decks from the Spark of Rebellion starter set.
Dave went Vader, which means I played Luke.
The first game went my way. It wasn’t one sided by all means. It was a bit to and fro, with each player having moments having the upper hand.
We stayed with our respective deck choices, and played a second game.
Dave definitely had the upper hand in this game. For the majority of the game I felt I was just holding on for dear life. Delaying the inevitable.
Finally Dave managed to deliver the winning blow.
Our third game was going to be with the second starter set that goes with the latest set Shadows of the Galaxy.
Dave played the Moth Gideon deck whilst I had the Mandalorian deck.
These decks were completely new to me. I had no idea what the focus of them were. I’d avoided any talk online about them.
I had to mulligan my opening hand and the resulting six cards still left me lacking a turn one play or even a decent turn two play. My turn one action was taking the initiative token.
Yeah I was on the backfoot right from the start.
Whilst my deck continued to hate me giving me no synergy between cards I had, no combos etc. Dave’s was just delivering him the goodies to overwhelm me, remove any defences/threats I could muster. In the end he just totally destroyed me.
I know within SWU there is targeted removal of one for or another. But I would have loved a board wipe card in this game. Maybe that’ll come in future releases.
Our fourth and final game saw the tables turned. I was getting upgrades, went all Voltron on Mando once he was out (I had him hitting for eight points of damage and a final winning 9). Dave was struggling to keep up or deal with the heavily upgraded Mando.
I do really like these starter decks. They are great fun to play. Seem relatively balanced. Great design on the player mats with the helpful player aids. But as pointed out these decks are let down by poor component quality.
I’m currently (as you have seen) using these like MtG duel decks for casual play with friends.
Or at least for the time being. Who knows where work shifts will take me in the future?
Yes last night was a Fenland Gamers club night, and I was able to attend.
It’s that time of year when folks are on holiday or tied up with Summer plans/events of some kind. So to have seven people turn up for club night wasn’t bad.
Seven isn’t a bad number to have. It means a split of three and four over two tables. Only Marcin and myself had games with us. Which naturally meant we wouldn’t be playing a game together.
On the plus side Jonathan and I did get to play together. I do miss playing games with Jonathan. Sadly Jonathan is still going through his gaming doldrums.
Jonathan, Chris, and myself played an all in game of Parks using the new play mat I picked up at UKGE. It’s a nice play mat, which I never knew existed. I only found out about it when Charlene told me a stand had them at the expo.
Parks is a lovely game. It has a depth that isn’t at first apparent. Which I like. Plus it looks gorgeous, with some amazing art and meeples.
My tour of the US national parks won me the game.
The final game for our table was Dandelions.
After losing to Chris who said he had no idea what he was doing (that stings) Jonathan and I headed off to our respective homes.
I stopped off at Asda and picked up a ribeye steak along with some other bits. I had reasoned I could get a kebab (which I do enjoy) or have a good steak for about the same money.
I’m really into steak at the moment. I like mine simply seasoned with salt, pepper, and garlic powder, with fried onion. None of those various sauces. I like the taste of steak, and don’t want to hide it with a sauce.
So yes I cooked the steak when I got home.
It ended a fun evening of gaming perfectly. Plus it was great to share a game or two with Jonathan again.
July has finally got off to a start on the gaming side.
Due to the aborted return to the hills I was able to join Marcin, Diego, and later Antony on Friday evening to play some games.
We started off with Otys. A post apocalyptic themed game. Marcin really likes that theme. It’s just a shame that the theme does not come through on this euro. The theme could be anything.
You are trying to build a little “engine” so that when you take an action that action becomes more powerful whether it’s by upgrading the action itself or increasing the bonus at the actions position.
Other wise you are collecting resources to try and complete contracts that give you points, or pay for some actions.
It was an enjoyable experience. You got to manipulate things in various ways.
Obviously there was plenty of banter during the game (and the rest of the evening).
It was even more satisfying that I denied Marcin a win by snatching the victory for myself.
Our next game was Diego’s copy of Kohaku. Anthony had joined us by then to join in. I do like this tile drafting game. Despite not getting a single turtle tile (worth 5 points), they always came out for the others, I won beating Diego by a single point.
Our final game of the evening was Courtisans.
Yeah I like Courtisans a lot. It gets very tactical trying to complete your secret goals whilst trying to screw over everyone else.
Luckily I came out on top and claimed victory.
It was a clean sweep for me. A good night at the gaming table.
Saturday saw Charlene and myself meeting up to play The White Castle.
I remember when The White Castle came out that it had a lot of buzz. It’s why I picked it up at this years UKGE months after that initial buzz had died down.
It is a very pretty game, with a nice table presence. The round tracker is enormous. Probably leaning on the overkill, too large side of things.
I have to admit I was left a little underwhelmed after playing the game. It felt too short.
Charlene thought that the sweet spot for her for this game was three players. Although she said Ben liked it at four players.
I’m not sure it’s a two player game. I need to try it at the higher player counts.
Oh Charlene won.
Next we played Targi. I hadn’t played this two player worker placement game since October 2018. Then that was against Jonathan at The Luxe.
It is an enjoyable game. Sadly it’s downside is that it is two player. And although every gamer has a few two player games in their collection they rarely get to the table. Which is a shame because there are some great two player games. Targi being one of them.
Charlene won this game too.
Our final game of Saturday afternoon was Dandelions.
In my previous post I gave my impressions of the two-player starter set from FFG for Star Wars Unlimited.
So continuing on from that post I’m going to share my thoughts on playing Star Wars Unlimited using the two starter decks included in the starter set.
Both Diego and myself have played other competitive collectible and living card games such as Magic the Gathering, Android Netrunner (not sure if Diego has played this) and Vampire the Masquerade Rivals.
Obviously for this starter set to be playable by two-players as its name suggests, it has to come with two preconstructed decks that can be played straight out of the box. You’ll find the deck lists for both decks at the end of the post.
Every deck built for Star Wars Unlimited has to have a leader and base. They determine the cards you can play in your deck. You can play out of faction cards but there is an extra cost in doing so.
In this two-player starter the two leaders you get are Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
I love that the art for both is from the duel between them on Cloud City at the end of Empire.
I’ve not looked at all the cards in the decks. But there is one that ties in with this called “I am your father”.
Even the way the card works (above) is so thematic. Love it.
Luke’s base is the Aministrator’s Tower, and Vader’s is the Commander Center. Both 30 health, and add a third faction symbol.
Luke’s BaseVader’s BaseThe two bases
Obviously the game shares mechanics common to all ccgs. Such as exhausting cards (tapping in mtg), units coming in exhausted (summoning sickness), spending resources to play cards. You get the idea.
So coming from a ccg background it was very easy to pick up the game.
I did like that you draw two cards at the end of the round, and may play a card from hand face down to be used as a resource.
This for me this is a major difference to other games I’ve played. It also introduces a hard decision because once a card has been played face down as a resource there is no getting it back. Which card becomes a resource? Which do you hold on to? If you don’t play a resource it delays when your leader can come out, it limits what cards can be played. It has such big implications. Especially early on.
I also like the back and forth of actions. And the gamble of passing. On your turn you can pass, waiting to see what your opponent does. However if your opponent seizes the initiative, or passes also. That’s it the round has ended. Even if you wanted to do more! That’s the gamble.
Diego and I played a game with each deck.
The decks seem fairly evenly matched. Our first game was pretty close.
Although our second game was more one sided. But that was more down to the draw of cards. You get games like that. You just have to put the game behind you, and move on to the next one.
I liked playing Star Wars Unlimited with these decks. They were fun to play. Great decks to play casually with a friend over the kitchen table.
I’ll definitely buy the next sets two-player starter set. Hopefully they too will be as balanced.
Finally here are the two deck lists for the decks.
Deck list for both decks
It should be noted there are some cards in this starter set that are only available in the starter set, or in the op kit promo kits.
Last night I got to play the two-player starter set for Star Wars Unlimited with Diego.
I have some mixed thoughts about the whole experience.
Let me just say up front I really like the game.
However I do have some issues with the quality of this product.
First up is the flimsy very thin card tokens included for tracking damage, first player, etc. That’s my issue they are so flimsy. I hate them. If you intend to get into the game you will want to upgrade these as a priority. Maybe that’s what the aim was. To “encourage” you to buy the GameGenic acrylic tokens. That’s if you can find anywhere that has them.
I was also very disappointed with the quality of the cards themselves. They too are very thin. You will be sleeving the cards. You have to. These are boarding on unusable. This means that opening boosters will be a bitter sweet experience. On one hand I’ll be excited about opening the packs, and the cards I pull. On the other repulsed by the poor quality of the card stock used.
The two folded paper playmats were as expected quality wise. I like they have the play areas on them. Plus act as a player aid with setup, what you can do on a turn, end of a round summary, plus keyword summary. All very handy for learning the game, and teaching it.
The quick start/learn to play booklet is nice and does the job well. We hardly had to refer to it.
The two cardboard deck boxes a nice touch that don’t need assembling. They are large enough to hold the cards sleeved.
Overall I think value wise this is a great starter set. However quality wise of the cards and tokens it feels cheap and that FFG are cutting corners to cut costs and maximise profit.
In another post I’ll talk more about the play experience of Star Wars Unlimited using this two-player starter set.
After having three days off where I got to game with Jonathan. Which was the first time in a longtime. Plus attend a Fenland Gamers club night (something that is a rarity these days). At which I got to game with more friends I hadn’t played with in a while (hello Ben).
Games that saw the table in these two sessions were Dandelions, Can’t Stop, Senso: Battle for Japan, Macao, Ship Captain Crew, and Sea Salt & Pepper. Plus two games that Ben owned No Mercy, and Come Sail Away!
It was back to work and a pretty full on four days that were quite frankly draining. Especially after one shift I didn’t have any real recovery time because of union meetings I had to attend. I actually ended up having a snooze in the car between the last union meeting and the start of my shift.
The knock on effect was I was too tired to write anything about the gaming I mentioned above. Or get to mention that it came to light Jonathan has been playing trick taking games wrongly for a very long time. Basically the mistake was playing a trump card when you could follow suit. You have to follow suit. If you can’t then you can play a trump card (if you have any) or “dump” a card from another suit.
As I write this life update I have two much needed days off. Followed by a day back at work. Followed by four days off. What am I going to do in those days off? It’s not long enough to visit Nathan and give mum time to recover! Yes mum needs recovery time after I go away. I’ve factored it for UKGE for example. Apparently looking after Nico and Loki the two attack chihuahuas can be very taxing.
I’m in the process of buying a small dice masters collection. Which will help with the cube building. More on this once it happens.
Until the next big expansion for Marvel Champions Age of Apocalypse comes out (tomorrow/next week?) I now have a complete set of cards. I ordered the final three hero packs that I needed (Venom, Gamora, and Drax) that arrived at the start of the week. The nice thing about getting these older hero packs is the fact you don’t have to pay full price for them. They get nice reductions.
I just need to get the game to the table, get a storage solution, and sleeve the thousands of cards!
Having Tuesday as a dead game night at the moment is killing me. It was really cool that on a Tuesday those of us that liked ccg/tcg/lcg type games had a regular evening where we could play these style of games. I need to be more proactive in my efforts to find somewhere.
Oh I did get a quick chance yesterday to play around with my fire starting kit! I need to start playing around with this more. Get more confident in using it, and develop my fire starting skills.
So yesterday using a piece of fat wood (resin rich pine wood) I created some tinder to start a fire with. Then using a fero rod and striker to create sparks managed to get the tinder to light. This little exercise did not involve me building this into a roaring fire. Its aim was to get the tinder going. I followed this up with using the fero rod and striker to start a tinder wick. Which started first strike! Wow that was impressive.
My final little play with fire for the afternoon was to start a trangia burner with the fero rod and striker. Which worked really well. Why hadn’t I done this back when I was doing all the meth stove reviews?
My Kelly Kettle Trekker also arrived. Looks a lovely bit of kit. Although the pot and lid look too small to be of any practical use. I can’t see them being used at all, and replaced by one of my titanium pots.
Hopefully I’ll get to try out the Kelly Kettle on one of my days off. Who knows I might even film my initial efforts with it!
Last night three very good friends joined me in playing some games at our usual location of the Wisbech St Mary Sports and Social Club.
Earlier in the day I had started a six bean chili of my own creation. My chilli paste I used was a combination of ancho, pasilla, guajillo, and kashmiri chillis. All mild chillis. I’m going for taste over heat. So I want that chilli warmth that you get after having a mouthful but not so much that it hides any flavour.
The night before the beans (a combination of haricot, butter, pinto, black turtle, cannellini, and kidney beans) were soaked in a water that had salt and baking powder dissolved in it.
The peppers I used in my “Mexican” mirapoix were Tesco Finest sweet ramiro peppers. Plus I added a can of La Costena Chipotles Peppers In Adobo Sauce, some chopped up Tesco vine ripened tomatoes I had that needed using up, and finally some whole chestnut mushrooms.
This concoction was then put in a low oven for four hours or more. I took it out just before I left. I finished it off with the juice of one lime.
I took a little of the chili with me to get a second opinion or two.
That’s how much I was happy with the results of this “experiment”. Folks don’t get to try my cooking unless I’m happy with it. I’m not a confident cook and rarely share my efforts with others.
I’m very much a seat of pants cook. No two times I cook something will be the same. I vary some element or two.
Chili and soup are great for riffing!
I think for me and maybe to the horror of Texans and a lot of folks I like bean chili over a meat based one. My six bean chili is vegan!
Gavin and Diego liked the chili. Although Diego did say it was sweet. Marcin “liked” it, however he said it was spicy! He doesn’t do spicy. There was a big clue that it’s a chili!
Our first game of the evening was Wyrmspan. Like Apiary, and Expeditions, or any new game, this was just another play in the new game tour of players trying it.
I’m not complaining as I get to play a game I enjoy playing.
For the first time ever in a game we had a three way draw for first place. Diego, Marcin, and myself all got exactly the same number of points! Sadly the tie breaker of number of dragons on display gave Diego the victory.
After Gavin left we had time to play Can’t Stop.
This has become a favourite “filler” game. It’s light, very quick to teach, and fun.
Unlike Wyrmspan where Diego won on a technicality this was a clear win for him. Due mainly to Marcin and myself being unable to stop!
This was a great evening. Much banter and laughs. So great to see Gavin again. This sort of evening just sums up what gaming for me is.
