Category Archives: game night

game night

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!

 

As long as a John Bonham Drum Solo

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night was the second Wednesday of the month and so the regular monthly Fenland Gamers meetup was held at its usual location in Wisbech.

We kind of had a theme last night of gateway/casual games. With a friend of mine from Peterborough and her daughter coming along for the first time, who aren't “gamers” but more noobs having played and loved Tsuro and Love Letter in the past and definitely not into the heavier side of gaming, our selection of games played were aimed at them.

Now I should point out that just because the games played are considered to be on the lighter side, that they are still great fun games for the more hardened gamer. Two of our evenings games are from my collection so that should say how I feel about those two games.

Our evenings gaming started off with a game of Sushi Go. Is it really nearly a year since I first played this game at the UK Games Expo, and bought instantly after the demo game? Drafting and set collection, great fun colourful art work. This is a lovely little game. And nearly a year later I still love it. I think the secret with these sort of games is not to over play them otherwise you get burned out, and no longer enjoy playing them. Having a variety of games that fill the same role that you can rotate, switch around, definitely is the secret to keeping these games fresh and favourites.

Our game of Sushi Go this evening was won by Katie.

We followed Sushi Go up with Batman Fluxx. This was an epic game of Fluxx. I don't think I've played a game of Fluxx that last this long, we must have been easily forty to fifty minutes. We had loads of new rules out, they'd get reset to the basic rules, then the new rules would build up. Everyone was trying to find a way to manipulate the cards to give them the win, but not getting close. We cycled through the discard pile twice!

I ended up with the goal that needed five or more Villians out in front of players and the Bat signal. Katie had the Bat signal in front of her. I had an action that allowed me to steal it. Wait I can win this on my next go, as long as no one else has a way of getting a win.

Jonathan took his go, no win. Then it was Katie, no win. My friends daughter, no win. Finally before my turn, my friend. Her last play was discard your hand then draw that number cards you discarded. Sixteen cards discarded, sixteen new cards! Why? Why would you do that?

Right my turn…

I got cocky, I asked Jonathan to draw my cards and just place them face down because I didn't care what they were! Right play my first card and steal the Bat signal from Katie. But Jonathan decided to throw a curve ball in my plan and bring it to an early end. He interrupted my action and instead was allowed to steal from my keepers. Damn! Right new rule Play All, OK better look at my hand. Wait, I still have a card I can play to steal the Bat signal. With the Bat signal safely in front of me, time to play the new goal and get the win!!! Victory! That was very closely me falling flat on my face in an embarrassing way after me being so cocky.

But what an epic long game.

Our final game of the evening was Camel Up. This is my second time playing the game. I gather Jonathan's kids must like it, because we suspect they played it last after Jonathan found it hadn't been packed away “correctly”.

Camel Up is a beautiful looking game. The pyramid dice shaker being the obvious show stopper of the game. The eyes are just attracted to it on the board. Not the most practical of things, but a wonderful tactile bit of theatrics.

Camel Up isn't in my collection. I don't like it enough to add it. Don't get me wrong the two times I've played it now I've had fun. But Colt Express fills a similar role in my collection.

Oh for the history books Katie walked away with the honours here too.

Whilst putting together the games to take for the evening I was going to throw in Age of War. But for the love of it I couldn't find it. I'd seen it earlier in the day. But now no sign of it. I could feel that little itch that starts when I lose something starting to kick in. I'd find no rest until I found it or got a replacement.

When I got home after a great evening gaming, I found the game. It was sitting under some Lego!! Mystery solved, itch stopped. I'd be able to sleep.

 

Duelling Decks

game night, magic
It was Tuesday, not a Formula D league night, so must have been Warlords Chatteris club night.
A new prospective member turned up last night with his Magic deck. We had chatted on the clubs Facebook page, so I acted as “host” for the evening. Heck the things I do for the club like having to play Magic with some-one.
We played our own preconstructed decks to start with, with Chris sitting in coaching the other person. Well we were/are still both relatively noobs to the game.
I was able to win by chipping away four points at a time.
Our second game was using the Blessed v Cursed Duel Decks from the new Shadows Over Innistrad set. These are prebuilt decks designed to battle each other. My opponent chose the black/blue deck, which was zombies and vampires. Whilst I had the White/blue deck, so angels and humans. I got an early advantage with flying monsters ie angels that weren't getting blocked. But that ground to a halt once my opponent got a couple of flying monsters, and stared building up a few monsters to eventually attack with. Neither of us attacked whilst we were building up our battlefields waiting to get the tactical advantage. Which fell to me first with having not just a superiority in number of flyers, but the total damage that would get through after being blocked was enough for me to deliver the knock out blow.
Our third and final game of Magic was another duel deck but this time from Zendikar. In fact it was easy to see I hadn't played these two decks because the cards were still sealed! There was some nice nback and forth. My opponent cleared my battlefield down to one monster with an instant, it also removed his token monsters he had out. But my single left monster and a land I could turn into a monster were enough for me to take the win again.
A great evening for me. A clean sweep of victories, I won't get that for a while playing Magic.
 

 

An Alternate Game Night

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night was the last forced break from Pandemic Legacy due to holidays in warmer climates by a team member. Wait I wonder if I can make that sound even more passive aggressive? Anyway not to waste permission slips etc the rest of our team met up to play games.

First to the table was Glass Road. This time we were going to play it correctly!

Wow what a big difference that made. It's a very fast game when played correctly, thirty to forty minutes for the three of us. I do like the resource management using the two dials with the auto production of glass and bricks.

Now during last nights game I got the pond with a shark in it! Does this count as an Easter egg in the game? But I love little touches like this, Imperial Settlers has these in its art. It adds a nice like side chat during game play “oh look…”

My tactic in the game ended up being buying tiles with as high a victory point score on as possible, over ones that had a variable score based on the amount of a specific resource. Which after the final scoring saw me victorious by a single point.

Our second game of the evening was Traders of Osaka. This game was good as a two player game, but as a three player game? Wow!

It scaled nicely, it's just as much fun if not more so. Plus the game becomes more tactical, especially on the reserving cards, and buying the market. Timing is everything. Reserving cards becomes more a decision of do I want this card to advance my plans, or do I need to stop this card being taken to deny my opponents a scoring opportunity?

For example early on I was able to get the yellow ship to Edo for a payday, leaving green and red in dangerous waters and sinking. This wiped out Mat's green and red cards in front of him, he had no yellow. While doing the same to Jonathan however he was able to score two points on yellow, while I was able to score four points.

The other nice thing is that the market is changing more variable with more players, causing you to think on your feet and adjust plans.

Yeah Traders of Osaka is fast becoming a favourite.

After some chat such as how the box for Bohemian Villages could be smaller, however it's not upto the levels of Machi Koro for over sized boxes, we said our farewells.

Another great evening of gaming, and a clean sweep of wins for me!

Beverages and Gaming on a Saturday

coffee shop gaming, Fenland Gamers, game night

Yesterday a long over due Costa Gaming happened. Jonathan and I met up at the local Wisbech Costa on the Market Place to enjoy good beverages and hopefully some great games.

I had got there slightly early (had to get a birthday card for my Mum and a present, well it's kinda her birthday today), so I was looking through the games I'd bought with me. Oh why had I taken? Eight Minute Empire Legends, Traders of Osaka, Roll For It and Batman Fluxx. Traders of Osaka was out when Jonathan arrived.

So that is the game we played first. I've been wanting to get this to the table since it arrived.

It appears a simple game, on your turn you can do one of three actions, take a card for its monetary value, buy the whole market row, reserve a card.

Before playing and when explaining it the scoring of sets when a ship hits Edo sounds unnecessarily complicated using rounding up, multiplication and division. But when you start doing it, it actually isn't that much of a hassle.

There is a hidden depth and tactical decision making to the game. Having to decide when best to reserve a card, and when to take the card. Trying to manipulate the boats and when they arrive, or get stranded so they sink hopefully denying the other players of possible points.

I did like the game, it didn't disappoint. It worked really well as a two player game.

Our second game was a new arrival for Jonathan, Bohemian Villages.

 

This is a worker placement type game where your placement of your workers is controlled by the roll of four dice. You allocate those dice to generate a number, the only limitation is that you can't use a single dice to generate a number for placement. For instance if I rolled a 6, 2, 4 and a 3, I could use the 6 and 2 to make 8 and place one of my workers on farm or if I wanted a town hall I could use the 6 and 4 to give me 10, and then use the 3 and 2 to make 5 and allow me to place a worker on a tailor shop. As you can tell by that each building type is allocated to a number, for instance churches are 11. Some of these buildings give immediate scoring (which is in the form of money), others score at the end of the game (which is triggered when one player has no more workers to place), some like the inns once three other workers are in the village give reoccurring money at the start of your turn. Then you have mid game scoring that gets triggered when certain events happen.

At the end of the game the one with the most money is the winner.

Despite winning I like this game a lot. I like the rolling dice and combining them to allow you to place workers. There is a nice balance between immediate scoring, and end scoring opportunities. I like the art work. It's quick to learn. Jonathan and I did forget to claim some recurring money at the start of our turns once or twice. I think I lost about five points this way, Jonathan lost about three I think. Which brings me to the only “weak” spot of the game, and Jonathan and I both agree on this, the player aids could be improved, and made clearer about the recurring money, maybe some reminds to claim, and the wording on one or two is a little confusing.

After two great games Jonathan and I chewed the fat, righted wrongs, brainstormed before saying our farewells.

I had a great time in Costa, great games, great company. Can you ask for more?

Panda Smash

game night

Last night being Friday night meant after a day doing supply teaching I was at the local Friday night game group. The one I've not been very happy with due to inconsiderate noise pollution from the odd individual at previous meet ups playing loud music.

The first game of the evening was a four player game of Agricola. My first time playing the game. This was a far better experience than Caverna. Rules explained, had the score reference card, so I knew the scoring and how to avoid negative points, or at least reduce the amount of negative points I got.

So ok I don't know the “best” strategies to take for the game. However I did feel that I was in with a shout right upto the end.

So at its heart this is a worker placement game. And I like this mechanic. But! So do I like Agricola or come to that Caverna?

There are elements I like. Like the harvest and having to feed your workers, or the unlocking of new actions to do as you progress through the game. However I'm not keen on being limited to just two actions. Yes you can produce additional workers. But this just doesn't work for me.

This isn't my favourite worker placement game. I think Agricola/Caverna has joined Stone Age as my least favourite worker placement games that I'd play, but I wouldn't be that keen on.

So after coming in a respectable third in Agricola we played four player King of Tokyo with the power ups expansion.

I didn't roll a single power up card, only bought one card from the middle. Which was a pretty cool one, because it gave an extra victory point each time I started my turn in Tokyo, plus an extra point of damage when I dealt out damage whilst in Tokyo.

After a turn or two of rolling threes pumping up my victory points, Ben had been creeping towards a victory point win from a successful run in Tokyo. But we managed to get him out to avoid that outcome. With myself encamped in Tokyo my only card kicked in.

With some amazing rolls I took out two monsters at the same time. That extra point of damage was powerful, it meant that knockout blow was a six point hit!

My victory was inevitable! Well if I didn't get hit with five or more damage by the other remaining player. Unfortunately for them they only did a point of damage, played a power up card that forced me out of Tokyo and slightly delayed my victory. But I moved back into Tokyo to give me the final point I needed to grab a points victory, but it was also close for grabbing a last monster standing victory also.

I'd been playing the Panda monster, and both times now that I've played him I've won. Guess which monster I'm going to keep playing?

Ben had to go after this game, and I decided to call it a night also. It was at this point I got really pissed off. The guy playing with us, sitting next to me was going to play his newly purchased Epic card game. Fair enough. However instead of helping to pack away my game before setting up his, the ignorant git pulled out the cards for Epic and started shuffling them in front of him pushing my stuff out of his way to do so. Yes he was doing that style popular with Magic players creating multiple little mini decks. I've used this method myself to shuffle cards.

What a fracking dick. Even after I point out I was trying to pack my game away, all I got was “I'll move up the table”, which he didn't.

I was seething inside. This is the final straw I think. I'm not enjoying this group at all. If you take out Ben, Jamie (and his son) the majority of my experience playing with the others in this group is that they are selfish gits.

I might suggest to Ben and Jamie we find a different location to play, an alternative Friday evening/night gaming experience.

Afterwards on my way home I called in at The Luxe to mainly give Nath grief, and to confirm that they are actually getting the new X-Men movie, and when. Which they are, a couple of weeks after its release. I'm more than happy to wait a couple of weeks to see the movie at my favourite cinematic experience place. Plus Nath has to be nice to me and call me sir.

So that was Friday's gaming.

 

World domination naturally…

chatteris warlords, game night

Tuesday night, must be Chatteris Warlords (unless it's the Fenland Gamers Formula D league night).

My first game(s) of the evening were Love Letter Batman and the classic original Love Letter. I won the Batman game. However Robert who I was playing with (plus another) didn't enjoy playing this version. His preference was the classic version, which Robert seemed to be remembering was different to the Batman one.

So I pointed out I had the classic version and we could play that. The enthusiasm wasn't overwhelming. It had been like playing with two doped up patients. Both half asleep.

We started our game of the classic Love Letter. Robert looked at the summary sheet of cards, and saw that the two games apart from the art was the same (there was one difference but I'll come to that).

However Robert did seem to visibly enjoy the classic much more than the Batman version, getting much more involved. Had he woken up?!!!

Robert went on to get the win after taking an early lead, which stalled and allows myself and the other player to come back into the game and come close to winning ourselves.

Now the only difference between classic and Batman is one rule change. If in the Batman version if you play the Batman card which is the guard card in classic (value 1) and guess correctly you get a point as well as eliminating the other player you just guessed. This is the bit Robert didn't like it “made the game quicker”.

Naturally I disagree, I love the Batman version. It's my favourite version of the game. I love the theme, the art, and I like the rule just described. I like it because yes it's a double edged sword, but it allows some-one trailing to get back into the game. Plus it fits thematically. That point is Batmans reward for capturing a bad guy that's escaped Arkham and putting them back.

So while we were playing Love Letter and our next game, there was a couple of Bolt Action games going on. Plus a game of Blokus that got followed by some Magic the Gathering.

My next game was a first for me, Marvel Legendary: Villians. I don't own this version of Legendary, I may do one day but at the moment, I don't (although Nathan does, well I did buy it as a present for him).

Our group of Villians which included King Pin, Venom, Ultron plus some others were having their cunning plans for world domination thwarted by Doctor Strange and the defenders and some other superheroes like the Uncanny X-Men.

In general this plays just like Marvel Legendary with some minor variations on somethings. What Villians has that Marvel Legendary doesn't is a neoprene playmat. Which is far superior to the cardboard one in Marvel Legendary.

Our motley crew of criminals did managed to beat Doctor Strange and his cronies. Which means we were free to take over the world!

Now once you defeat the Commander (Doctor Strange) because the game is cooperative it can end just there. However you can decide a “winner” based on how many heroes and bystanders that you defeated. Each has a point value. It's this after scoring that is used in official competitive Marvel Legendary play. So we tallied up our points and I emerged the victor.

As I left for home, a bunch were mid game playing Star Realms, including the heroes cards. Which I haven't played with myself. I must get round to doing that sometime.

Another great evening of gaming, that had something new but familiar, and something 'old'.