Category Archives: game night

game night

An Impromptu Gaming Night

Fenland Gamers, game night

We were once more going to be a man down for our Pandemic Legacy session on Wednesday, so we decided to turn it into an open gaming session to the members of The Fenland Gamers (which you can join for FREE either on the Facebook page or the clubs website).

Our evenings gaming started off with us playing 51st State Complete Master Set. Yes the theme isn't on Jonathan's top 1000 themes to play. But I thought he might like the mechanics.

After going over the rules from the excellent and humourous cheat sheet, we started playing. The game started off slow, maybe because we were all learning the game. No one was building much, or getting victory points. Jonathan was the first to score a point, and he held the lead right upto the end of the game to get (spoiler) the win. In fact I was the last to start scoring. However I did make a late dash to grab second place.

I think roughly the game took about one and half hours for us to play with four players. Which surprised me because from podcasts I'd heard talking about the game they were saying it played quicker than Imperial Settlers.

In this game there was very little razing other players buildings, I was the only one who did it, and that was a too late attempt to slow Jonathan's scoring engine. So were we not being aggressive enough?

It did seem to take a few rounds to get any sort of engine going. I made a lot of deals to bring in resources.

I do need to check the rules again, because none of us got shields. And we didn't spot any cards that gave us one either. So unless an expansion (included in the box) gave them, we were a bit confused how we got them. That also goes for the bulldozer token.

I do like Imperial Settlers (wish I could play it more often), so unsurprisingly I enjoyed playing 51st State. I liked the extra option when building of discarding a building already built of the same type, along with a brick. It allowed the more expensive to build building to be built more easily. A fact I remembered too late in the game. I like the different levels of raze cost of buildings based on position on the player board.

The components, art work, are fantastic. I feel it's very thematic. Love the humour in the rules.

After playing in a post apocalyptic world there is only one thing to do, play test a an aphid apocalypse based game for Jonathan! Jonathan and his design partner Rebecca are working on a co-operative pandemic influenced kids game set in the Ladybug Lunch (a previous kids card game of theirs) universe. But in this world instead of diseases you are trying to stop aphids taking over the flowers in your garden.

This was as a said a play test. A first in the UK. The game was over very very quickly. Jonathan was under the opinion that it was too hard for a kids game. My suggestion was to have a double sided board, a hard and easy side. It will be interesting to see if Jonathan and Rebecca run with that idea.

Our final game of the evening was Love Letter Batman, which I won, leaving Jonathan as the only one in the game that didn't score a point. Yes I had to point that out.

A great evening of gaming, I hope this got you interested in coming along to one of our gaming sessions.

 

Wacky Races

Fenland Gamers, formula d, game night
It was the end of the month. Which meant it was time for the second race in our inaugural Formula D League. In our first race Katie ran away with the victory, while Jonathan did not finish.
In a cunning plan, which I'm sure he'd been plotting since his going out in flames in the first race, Jonathan suggested a “handicapping” for starting order. Which saw Jonathan in pole position, Jo in second, myself in third, and Katie in last place. Basically the reverse order of the results from the previous race.
So even with the head start and an initial lead where it looked like Katie was getting a strong hold on last place, and a little smack talk from me. Somehow and I'm still not sure how even as I write this, Katie was in the lead, and pulling away. I think we lost it on the corners.
As Katie casually raced around the track admiring the sights and sounds of Singapore, Jonathan and I had a little tussle for second and third place, which in the end he ended up winning comfortably. Finally limping across the finish line and taking home the “Driving Miss Daisy” cup for last place was Jo.
That's back to back victories for Katie, a first time finish for Jonathan. I don't think anyone is going to touch Katie for taking the honours of champion at the end of our next race, however there's everything to play for, for the other podium places for the rest of us.

We ended the evening by introducing Katie to Bohemian Villages. Jonathan and I really should stop trying to play the “meta” game and using Jedi mind tricks on others to try and get a tactical advantage, and concentrate on playing. Katie kicked our butts at this game, some would argue beginners luck. But not I. Getting a massive score of sixty three is not luck.

Before our racing started Jonathan and myself had met up a little early to play a game or two as warm up. So we played Nations the Dice Game.

Our first game saw a couple of miss plays, like scoring only one point for being in front in books instead of two. The other more crucial was missing out the fourth age/round. DOH!

Neither of us got much of an engine going, mainly because there were very few tiles coming out to buy that gave us extra dice.

I sneaked the win. Despite the misplays, Jonathan liked the game enough to give it a second play. This time we played it correctly, and with more tiles coming out that gave more dice, engines kicked in, and more options of what to do became available.

Jonathan liked the game, and made the comment I think everyone makes after playing it, I know I have, it's over way too quickly. You just want it to go on for another round or two.

A great evening gaming once again.

Sunday afternoon gaming

Fenland Gamers, game night
Yesterday I got invited to join Jonathan and his dad for an afternoons gaming. Upon arrival I got greeted by a puppy called Bonnie. Who was very bouncy and friendly. My ones will being giving me that betrayed look when I get home when they smell Bonnie on me.
Our afternoons gaming started off with the teaching Batman Love Letter to Jonathan's dad. For which he cashed in his beginners luck chip to win!
We followed up with a game of Brew Crafters: The Travel Card Game. A game I hadn't played before, but has been in my collection in the pile of shame for a long time.
So I was very glad to have this opportunity to play the game.
I enjoyed the game. The dual use of cards, either as a resource to complete recipes, or for its ability, is pretty cool. Which means you have to make a decision whether to use the card to complete a recipe and get points that way, or play the card for its ability and build up an engine that might get you more points when you complete a recipe, or get a free card after completing a recipe, or bonus points at the end of the game. It gives that brew crafting experience without having to go through the full on brew crafters game. It's a pretty quick to play game, I think it was about thirty mins most.
Yeah this is a nice light filler card game, which Jonathan's Dad won, leaving Jonathan and myself last with equal points.
We followed up with another first, this time for all of us, by breaking out one of the 18p (plus postage) games Jonathan got from Amazon US when they accidently priced up a load of games incorrectly, The Struggle for Catan. Which is Catan the card game basically, or Catan light.
Ok I liked this one too. I love that this gives that Catan feeling in a filler game. There are some nice touches in the game, like the destiny card which decides the direction that cards are “stolen from” if all of a card type such as roads, knights are taken. The city cards having different affects on the game such having players discard down to seven cards is nice. Plus there is a city expansion card that gives an on going ability such as protecting a road from being stolen.
I romped home with the win. I can see this game being added to the collection.
Next up Ladybug Lunch hit the table to refresh Jonathan's dad on the rules, because he was going to be teaching it soon on a trip. Three adults playing this game meant the game took on a surprise cut throat tone. Once again the spoils of victory went to Jonathan's Dad.
Our last game of the afternoon was Bohemian Villages. This was my fifth play of the game this month. I love this game. It's just a shame the game is not widely known. From my understanding there is no US distributor, which means none of those big video bloggers over that side have covered the game yet. Which means hardly anyone knows this game exists. If Stephen Buonocore of Stronghold Games was faster off the mark he'd be signing this game up before anyone else gets it. The game is bi-lingual (English/German), so technically doesn't need any work done on it, just needs getting out there.
I managed to beat Jonathan by a point, but his Dad once more walked away with the victory once again.
Finally thanks to Jonathan one of those rare photos of me playing a game. In this case Ladybug Lunch.

A great afternoons gaming, a big thank you to Jonathan and his Dad for inviting me along.

Our First Friday Evening Gaming

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night saw the first weekly Friday Evening Gaming meetup of the Fenland Gamers at the Angel Inn in Wisbech.

The evening of gaming was scheduled to kick off at 5pm, Debbie rushing from work arrived just after. So while we waited to see if others would turn up we played King of Tokyo.

Debbie kicked my butt royally at the game. She won the first game with a points victory. Our second game we drew because I bought and played a card that did three damage to both of us, and killed both of us. Why would I do that? I knew I wouldn't survive to my next go. Debbie was doing an extra point of damage each attack because of a card she had bought. Two claws plus that extra damage would have finished me. So I settled for a draw. Our third and final game saw it going the way of the first game with me losing again.

Jonathan and his daughter turned up just as we were deciding what next to play. So we asked Jonathan's daughter to choose our next game to play. And she choose well, we were going to be playing Codenames.

The teams were boys against girls. We played two games, swapping over the roles between guesser and clue giver between games. Jonathan and I won both games. But it was great fun. You have to be able to put yourself into the head of the other person whether you are guessing or giving the clue. I was just grateful that Jonathan's comicbook knowledge and inparticular Spider-Man was good enough to get one of my clues.

Next up we played <spoiler alert> my game of the month, and a big favourite of Jonathan's as well, Bohemian Villages. Jonathan's daughter hadn't played before so we ran through the rules at the start. This is such a fun game. It's fun to watch some-one miss taking their income at the start of their turn, roll the dice and then realise what they have just done. Points lost. Then you do exactly the same on your own turn because you also got distracted or forgot. Debbie and I drew for last place, while Jonathan took first place.

Our last game of the evening was Ladybugs Lunch but hey it really should be called Ladybirds Lunch. This is Americanisation gone too far. I'd never played this game before but everyone else had. Luckily fifty percent of the design team was there to teach me! This was a game that Jonathan co-designed. You control a ladybird who has to clear the bugs off your flower. It's a “kids” game, no that's not fair, I'd call it a family game. A fun little family game. Thanks to Jonathan's shuffling (which his daughter loved) on my first turn I was in a good position to win on my second turn. Then Debbie and the others picked on me to stop that happening. A few turns later Debbie took the victory.

So our first Friday Evening gaming was a fun time. A good start, now to grow the numbers.

Pick on me

chatteris warlords, game night

Four player Neuroshima Hex played as a deathmatch is an interesting experience. It should have been a free for all, with everyone attacking each other. However, for a while it seemed more like everyone was just going to crap on Darren. My HQ was attacked by the others for what seemed like most of the game.

Once I was gone I knew they would turn on each other. Somehow I managed to hang in there with six hit points, when that fighting amongst themselves started. Their hit points started to drop off fast.

The final battle was triggered by one of the other players. One of them died, another just about stayed alive but with less points than me, and somehow I ended up in second place!

For a first play for the others, and the bit longer to find out what the tiles did, and learning the game, this four player game took a reasonable hour to play. Yes Neuroshima Hex plays best with two. But it's still a great game with four. So scales well I think.

Other games going on at this weeks Chatteris Warlords were Bolt Action, Dead of Winter, Star Realms, Warhammer Conquest, and some fantasy themed wargame.

Pandemic Legacy October Revisited

Fenland Gamers, game night, pandemic, pandemic legacy season 1

Monday four bruised and battered adventurers once more tackled the month of October after managing to somehow get themselves back up off the ground from their last kicking by the game.

Joe the soldier had been dumped from the team, his inability to find a cure was not helpful. So parachuted in to take his place was Typhoid Mary the immunologist.

The easy objective of destroying two military bases was easily achieved, one of them was also a starting military base.

Between Mat and myself we had found two cures. The third was on its way. We had even built a vaccine building and had started making vaccine and using it to get rid of the faded.

Our third and final cure was in sight. In fact we were a couple of moves away from getting a much needed win.

That's when the game decided it had had enough playing with us, and it was time to put its meal out of its misery.

Once more an epidemic outbreak broke into pandemics, and like a broken record we ran out of faded and lost the game.

Our fourth loss in a row.

Mat was given the honour of opening the box he had been eying up since the beginning. Inside that mysterious box so many have seen but few have opened, were some cards! Cards that get shuffled into the players deck that will hopefully make our next game easier!

We decide to call it a day after yet another tick in the loser column, and attempt November next time.

But wow we are potentially now two games away from the end of the game, but with the way we have been playing more likely four.

 

My first netrunner comp

game night, netrunner, Road to regionals

Yesterday saw The Hobbit Hole run its first Netrunner event. John (the store owner) was using the Spring 2016 store kit. However to make this first event “special” I had donated a copy of Worlds of Android premium edition as the top prize.

So the Spring kit gave the following to use for prizes:

  • A set of acrylic brain damage tokens (first place)
  • Two alt art Leela Patel identity cards (top two)
  • Seventeen alt art Political Operative cards (basically participation prize)

Naturally I wanted first place not for the book (I already have it) but the brain damage tokens.

The combatants were John, Chris, Robert, Kar-Fai and myself. There could have been at least another three players but previous arranged commitments or work stopped them taking part. Robert was the surprise entry after his rage quitting of the game announcement on Tuesday. But somehow he had managed to build a deck Friday night.

My first round match up was with Chris. My Noise ran riot over Chris's Replicating Perfection deck. He romped away with seven unanswered agenda points to get the win. It was then my NEH deck taking on his Kate deck. My NEH is the deck I still think needs work. It's the ice, and more cards to do damage if the runner is tagged. However in this match up it was working nicely. All the little “tricks” were landing such as News Team being taken as a negative agenda point (twice) negating scored one point agendas. Daily Business Show is allowing me to bury agendas at the bottom of my deck. Chris having been wreck less against this deck before, had given me my only ever turn two win. So he was playing much more cautiously against this deck. But still I get the win. Chris isn't happy. His dreams of getting the Android book fading away.

Round two saw me against Kar-Fai. Our match up started off with my Noise against his HB deck (can't remember the id). Kar-Fai started off scoring an early Private Security Force. In reply I scored three agendas worth six points. I was hunting for that final winning agenda, mainly by hitting R&D, and archives. Kar-Fai had been forced to purge virus counters to stop my deep digging of R&D. I had been ignoring a card in his scoring server because I felt it was a trap. During my hunting, I took three tags. Kar-Fai started using the Private Security Force ability of doing meat damage. I had a couple of I've Had Worse in hand that kept me in the game. I should have but didn't get rid of the tags, but then again I had no money, I didn't really need it at this point I thought. After my turn I was left with two cards in hand, hoping this hadn't been noticed. But click one damage, click one damage, click one damage, I'm dead. If I had hit that ignored server I'd have won! Brilliant game.

Our second game saw Gabriel against my NEH. This was a close game also. Kar-Fai was making it hard to keep tags landed on his runner by spending money to clear them. So although I'd prefer to keep the tags on him, it did mean he had to spend clicks and money to clear them. Everytime Kar-Fai hit HQ he kept hitting one of the two Scorched Earths I had in hand and was not able to land. Another reason for him to keep clearing tags. In the end our game went to time, with Kar-Fai getting the win on having more agenda points.

The third and final round was against John. This was my first time ever against John. John was playing core set NBN. Noise did his job, ran amok again and won the first game. I can't remember the core runner or faction John was using. But the “tricks” were working, John was walking into traps. I had scored four one point agendas, I had an unguarded archives with a two point agenda hidden in it (that never got hit), my unguarded PAD Campaign never got trashed. John did keep clearing tags that I landed. In the end our game went to time, giving me the win.

The modified win against John meant I took second instead of drawing first. But Kar-Fai got the well deserved first place. Kar-Fai very generously let me have the brain damage tokens.

Final positions for the competition:

  1. Kar-Fai
  2. Me
  3. Robert (third round buy)
  4. John (first round buy)
  5. Chris

Well done Kar-Fai – a worthy winner. Hope you enjoy the book, and look forward to playing against you soon.

Robert confirmed he is definitely selling up, he just wasn't enjoying the game, and I think may have already have a buyer for his core set and data packs.

I had a great time playing yesterday, can't wait for the next event.

The next Netrunner event (with another Spring 2016 kit) is 2nd July.

 

Gems in the ruins

game night

I know I said I wasn't going to this Friday night group anymore I'd had enough. But there I was back once more, a glutton for punishment.

Jamie, Lucas and myself played a game of Splendor using the official playmat, the first game I've played with it. It was also the first time Jamie and Lucas had played the game. So that's why I'm putting my worst score at the game todate of two points to “beginners luck”. Jamie romped to an easy victory of fifteen points, while Lucas narrowly beat me with a score of three.

No one remembers second place! Which is where I finished in the three games of King of Tokyo that we played. In one of the games I needed one victory point to win. Jamie was in the middle clicking up points. I only needed to reach seventeen points thanks to a card I had bought, whilst Jamie still needed to reach twenty. Could I roll that blooming point? Not a chance. The dice were definitely against me. Jamie took a points win, that could have also been a knockout victory too. But it shouldn't have been if the dice had been kinder.

Ok this was really my last time at this group. From next week a small splinter group of us will be meeting at The Angel pub from between 5pm and 9:00-9:30 (although it can go on longer). I'll put more details up about this in the next day or so.

Pandemic Legacy September Again

Fenland Gamers, game night, pandemic, pandemic legacy season 1

Wednesday saw the gang get together after a loooong hiatus (and still no ice cream or present from the holiday Debbbbie) to try and save humanity from being wiped off the face of the earth.

After restarting our first game once we realised we had already caught the paranoid soldier! Yeah that soldier that killed off my character Mustard by revealing he was a traitor! The character who was able to remove the faded. Our main source of doing this, apart from a couple of unfunded events. It was kind of a mercy restart also the game was kicking our butt.

With our restart well under way, things were not looking good. Things were just snow balling, outbreaks of the faded going unchecked, pandemics mounting up, a team decision was made to try and salvage something from this imminent defeat. We were going to concentrate on finding the virologist. At least we would have achieved something, an objective would have been completed. But more important another step to getting a cure for the faded.

It was a close one, but we did complete our manhunt, and the second piece of the cure puzzle found, before the game smashed us in the face.

So September had got the better of us. The game has a great win ratio against our team. Jonathan is going through a love hate relationship with it. Or more accurately battered player syndrome. The game keeps beating him up but he comes back for more.

We still had time to see if we could turn the evening around and get a victory on the sheet.

October saw us having to find patient zero at ground zero as a new objective. Not being able to remove the faded is hurting us. The nearest we can get to any form of control is quarantining cities. But it's not nearly as effective as removing them. Mustard you traitorous git you are truly missed.

Once again we set up to get patient zero as a priority. A priority we achieved. We now had all three parts of the puzzle for a cure. And our earlier misplay was now corrected. The universe was now back in alignment. Sadly the infected cities with the faded weren't. They were running away unchecked. We managed to complete a second objective of destroying two military bases, and cure a disease before time ran out like the faded. We could no longer place anymore faded on the board, so an auto loss.

Defeated again. But we did achieve some things we needed to do. We now have an answer for the faded. We can deal with them now. More about this next time when we can start using it in anger.

 

Frustrated from Chatteris

chatteris warlords, game night, netrunner

Last night I I managed to get a couple of games of Netrunner in. Practice for the coming weekends store comp.

The first game was my Noise against a Weyland deck. The corp took an early lead on the agenda front while I was building up my deck. I was very cash rich at the start, with a David out, Street Magic, Aesops, incubator out in support. Two parasites in hand.

My opponent quickly iced up archives, had a scoring server setup. I did some runs to get targets for the parasites to hit. With a second incubator out I was thinking I'd load up a medium and hit R&D. My parasites were attacking ice protecting archives and the scoring server.

Trashing one of my incubators to take out the ice on archives. Bingo! Five agenda points, back in the game.

Trashed the second incubator taking out the second piece of ice I was attacking with the other parasite. My David steam rolled through the remaining ice to get me the last two points for the win.

In our second game despite some misplays by both of us, I scraped out a win on agenda points.

The rest of the gaming group were playing 7 Wonders with all the expansions. There was some Magic action going on, plus the retro version of Bolt Action, Flint Action.

And while all this gaming goodness was going on Robert was struggling with his inner demons trying to build decks for Netrunner. His frustration almost turning into rage. I've since found out he has quit the game!