Category Archives: game night

game night

It’s drafty

chatteris warlords, game night, netrunner

At the weekly Chatteris Warlords meetup last night there was a Netrunner Draft going on, whilst some X-Wing and historical ship miniatures games were being played, amongst other stuff.

I've done two or three drafts before, a D&D Dicemasters one at last years UK Games Expo, and a couple of Epic drafts (one with Nath and one at this weekly meetup).

I'm still kind of undecided how I really feel about drafts. I like them, nay enjoy them even. Do I love them?

Netrunner is a LCG where you pre-construct decks to play with. Everyone has the same pool of cards to build from. There are no blind boosters. So Netrunner doesn't lend itself to being able to do drafting like you can with say Magic the Gathering or Dicemasters.

So FFG came up with a solution to this that allows Netrunner players to draft.

Basically FFG sell you three decks that go together. The first deck is a base one that contains a draft runner id, a draft corp id, and a few core cards. Everyone gets the same cards in this base deck. The other two decks are made up of one for the corp and one for the runner.

Each of these two decks are made up of forty random cards chosen from a card pool of two hundred odd cards I believe. They are randomly chosen at time of printing at the FFG card printing shop they own in the US (they use this for the small run stuff like these draft decks, promo cards etc).

Starting with the corp deck you split the four cards into “packs” of ten by dealing from the top of the deck without looking at them or shuffling before hand. You then follow normal drafting rules using the four packs. You then repeat this for the runner deck.

After drafting you go off to your private spot to build a corp and runner deck from the cards you drafted. Having built your decks you pair up and duke it out as per normal in Netrunner, except you play to six agenda points instead of seven.

So having been through all of the above I played Ben. Our first game was my corp against his runner. Which ended in a victory for Ben. However I had an early Sundew and pad campaign giving me lots of credits, plus some ice out. Ben hit my snare in R&D. Unluckily he scored agendas that were in my HQ to get the win.

Our second game the roles were reversed. Ben had a scoring server iced up, had iced up his HQ and left R&D wide open. Ben had a card on his scoring server that he was advancing big time. It was either an ambush that was going to hurt me big time when I ran into it, or an agenda that gained extra points the more advancement tokens on it. It turned out to be the later, a Project Beale scored as four agenda points. I soon caught up scoring from the unprotected R&D. I was hitting R&D at least once a turn for free!

Ben installed a new card on his scoring server and advanced it once and iced up his R&D. Too little too late, I ran on his R&D, I couldn't break the ice or its subroutines, but there was no end of run, so I was through and scored the winning agenda.

So the evening ended a draw between myself and Ben.

It certainly was interesting drafting in Netrunner. Not having to worry about influence, or number of copies of cards whilst building your deck, certainly make for some interesting decisions and combinations.

For instance I drafted Wyldside, which gave me card draw, but also costs me a click. I ended up with Rachel Beckman (seemed to be a card no one wanted, I think due to cost, eight credit cost to install is expensive). With no pancakes to get the click back, Rachel Beckman is a costly but effective alternative in this limited card pool. You get one extra click to spend each turn, plus she gets discarded when you take a tag. So a little tag protection. The synergy didn't occur to me while drafting, but when deck building from my drafted cards.

Drafting I think makes a fun break from the regular deck building. I think it might be more popular if Esdevium/FFG didn't price the latest draft set so expensively. At the moment for those that want to draft the only way people can play it cost effectively is to buy the older sets.

Another great evening running.

Meat Damage

expansions, Fenland Gamers, game night, netrunner, painting

Easter Monday, a bank holiday in the UK, and the last day in a four day weekend that started on Good Friday. For some it's a religious holiday celebrating the death and resurrection of Christ, for others it's just a long weekend and an excuse to pig out of chocolate. On the chocolate front I pig out after Easter when the shops reduce the price of their Easter eggs, more sugar high for your money.

My Easter Monday afternoon was spent at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole at Chatteris.

I was there for an informal painting workshop that was being run. I was given a Warhammer tyranid that had already got a base coat on so was ready for painting to practice with. After doing a poor job painting the main areas, I got to try dry brushing. A technique I have wanted to get a grasp of. Yes I knew the theory of doing it. But needed the confidence to do it. Having the practice miniature and guidance was enough to help give confidence I needed.

Naturally I hadn't gone to the store empty handed. I had a small bag of games and decks with me also.

I had leant my copy of Get Bit! I'd taken along to a family there to play with. It was the least I could do having won a game of Fluxx with them. After the painting I got roped into playing a two player game of Get Bit! In the two player variant both players play two robots. The game was enjoyable, not earth shattering. It won't be leaving my collection soon, but only because I have very few games that youngsters can play.

Chris and I played our first game of Netrunner. It was my Shaper deck against his Jinteki Corp deck. Chris won this easily scoring agendas. He'd built up a nice scoring server that was well protected. I was getting cards in place, but economy was an issue this time for me this time. Not having funds to make runs because you can't pump your ice breakers isn't good.

Our second game saw his Kate deck against my NBN Corp deck. Turn one I set a trap for the runner in a single remote server, iced up R&D and HQ, on the runners turn they played a couple of cards, did a run on my trap and took a tag. “How many cards are in your hand?” I enquired not casually enough. I think the runner knew what was coming. Scorched Earth, BAM! Turn two kill!

Quickest win of my short time playing Netrunner. Wow that was like shockingly amazing.

We reset and played again. This time the game played out more like a typical game. Once again early on I had the cards to do the kill in hand. But the runner was more careful in avoiding tags this time.

My little “tricks” we're playing out. I let the runner score some one point agendas and getting Franchise City scored in response. The runner scored 15 Minutes, that went back into R&D on my turn. I was allowed to keep two Pad Campaigns in play, even with three agendas in hand and a Scorched Earth, I was still able to create lots of new servers. The bottom of R&D was getting loaded up with agendas thanks to Daily Business Show. The runner had even taken News Team as a minus one agenda point to avoid taking a tag.

The game came down to one final play, if the runner failed on the run I'd won, because I could score out the agenda. The first ice they hit was a Wraparound, which got +7 strength, breaking that with Crypsis emptied the runners pockets of credits. Next up Turnpike, the runner gets a tag – finally! Then he final piece of ice an Enigma that the runner was able to break. Bugger they were through and got the win. Next turn I could have played the two Scorched Earth to kill them, or scored the agenda.

What a fantastic game. Who cares that I lost, it was a blast.

After a flurry of text messages from Jonathan, our Pandemic Legacy evening was moved to Wednesday, and transformed in to a three player gaming evening.

Our first game of the evening was naturally Five Tribes, since in the text exchange Jonathan had said he wanted to play the game again. How much did Jonathan like the game? Well in a virtual shopping basket in a virtual store, in a virtual world, is a virtual copy waiting to be turned into a real physical item in meat space once a virtual button has been pressed, and digits representing money are moved from one virtual place to another. Or without all that waffle, it's sitting in his Amazon basket.

Once again Jonathan's tactic of buying items, ignoring the djinns or clearing tiles paid off and gave him the win. Obviously I'm really bad at this game and came in last by a point to Debbie. A single point!

We then switched things up by playing Five Tribes again but this time with the expansion The Artisans of Naqala. Wow this is a great expansion. It doesn't add tonnes of stuff, but boy oh boy. With the mountains and chasm more thought has to be given to routes, because these obstacles have to be gone round. The sixth tribe adds a new scoring avenue and power ups, the tent wooden token, adds a scoring booster. It's a very nice expansion that doesn't overload you with new rules to learn, it just fits very naturally with the base game.

Jonathan and Debbie's scoring just went ballistic this game, Jonathan burst through the two hundred points barrier. Debbie hit 179 points, while I managed to beat my previous score but was way way way behind the other two on scoring. So yes I lost again and Jonathan won.

We finished off the evening playing a couple of games of Batman Fluxx. I won the first game, while Debbie took the win for the second game. Like Love Letter with Fluxx you choose the theme you like and play that. Some slight changes to rules, the way things play, but you expect that. In Batman Fluxx keepers have abilities/rules that can be used. For example I think it was the Batmobile I could discard to gain another turn straight away at the end of mine. Or the Batcave increases the number of cards you can draw, hand limit, play by one.

I enjoy Fluxx, I like the changing rules and goals. It's not everyone's taste, I think the theme for tonight was right, and the others enjoyed playing it.

So a great bank holiday playing games, doesn't get better than that.

 

Magic Batman

game night

This afternoon saw me at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole. I'd promised to let the owners daughter play Magic a The Gathering Arena of the Planeswalkers after she saw it being played the other weekend. It's important that you keep your word to little people.

Despite getting some hits in taking out some creatures, I still got beaten. When it came to doing the defensive rolls I seemed to be rolling like Jonathan does in Memoir and Battlelore, badly!

I can see the owner getting some pressure to get a copy! Which he had admitted he was getting a little bit of over Love Letter. I'd introduced his daughter to the game the other night at the Warlords gaming meet. Apparently the is idea he sells me stuff, not me introduce his daughter to games that he then has to buy. Oops ^__^

After being defeated at Arena of the Planeswalkers we had a game of Batman Love Letter. Being a two player game, we played first to eight points. Which I won with a massive nine points to three. I scored two at the end to get the win (that's guessing the other players card with a Batman card).

It was a fun afternoon.

And I'm back Monday for a painting workshop being held at the store.

Battle Royale

chatteris warlords, game night

By now regular readers will know that Tuesday evenings are now a gaming evening with the Chatteris Warlords. Which strangely enough is located in what can only be described as an O2 data network black hole. Yes despite having a signal to make calls, being able to get email, post to social media on your mobile device of choice (why anyone would want anything other than an iPhone I find mystifying) is not possible!

Luckily (or not depending on your point of view) the working mans club the Chatteris Warlords meet up at has free wifi. So I'm able to update social media etc once in the building.

Last night was a first for me playing Star Realms. How so? Well we played a four player game.

While with the core game, the odd promo, and Crisis expansion (minus using the Heroes) was more than enough cards to play with, what I didn't have enough of were the starting cards of explorers and vipers. There were only enough for two players. Once I get my hands on a Colony Wars set this situation will be resolved. However that didn't help last night. So we improvised. What we ended up doing was proxying some of the gambit and hero cards as vipers and explorers by slipping in a bit of paper in the sleeves with viper or explorer written on them. Not ideal, but workable.

Our four player game was being played as a free for all. So anyone could attack anyone else.

Ben and myself and played before. Ok Ben had been playing for a week. The other two players this was their first game.

As the photo above shows I had a great base and outpost setup for the later stages of the game. I was also down to just pure great cards each turn, which included The Ark and The Command Ship (got a turn before before being knocked out of the game). The only way I'd really want to improve the above was by having a Mech World there, but that went early on to the noobs. But everyone did quickly learn how bad ass Fleet HQ was once I got it.

The noob next to me also got a bases and outposts wall up in front of him. I should have destroyed it when I had a thirty point face smash to deal out. But instead I took Ben out of the game because I saw him as the bigger threat.

The noob opposite me I'd already knocked down to nine authority previously. Had no bases/outposts that would pose a problem or effective defense. Plus wasn't comboing big hits.

But the noob next to me, with his bases and outposts, was able to combo up taking out my outposts and having enough authority to smack me out of the game.

That meant the noob opposite had a single shot at taking the noob next to me. He gave it a good shot. Managed to get to twenty odd points to attack with. But not enough to win the game. Next go the noob next to me won.

I enjoyed playing Star Realms like this. There wasn't too much of everyone just ganging up on a single person. It seemed fairly even with everyone attacking everyone else. Although it is possible to have one against many.

My final game of the evening was a quick game of Batman Love Letter that I taught to a couple of people. Which both enjoyed.

A fun evening of gaming. Lots of different games going on, Bolt Action, X-Wing and that WWII airplane game that inspired/influenced X-Wing to name a few.

I Have A Plan!

Fenland Gamers, game night, love letter

We were going to be a man down last night, so with no Matt the remaining Pandemic Legacy crew decided to hold a normal game evening instead.

Our first game of the evening was one of the hot games of 2014 Five Tribes. If you remember I had played this once before nearly a year ago, but the experience was less than enjoyable because of a big baby being a sore loser.

This evenings experience playing Five Tribes was so so much more pleasurable. Jonathan's tactic of getting goods from the trade row won out. Jo was collecting fakirs for some reason, and despite it being pointed out they are worth no points at the end, claimed she had a plan.

Our game ended because there were no more legal moves left to play.

I love the fact you get this nice thick (read lots of pages) score pad for this game. Discoveries are you paying attention? You don't even give a score pad!

After the scores were calculated and added up, Jonathan romped home for the win.

Our second game of the evening was Takenoko. Cute panda, bamboo, frustrated gardener, what more could you want in a game?

This game seemed to be over quickly. It definitely lived up to the predicted forty five minutes playtime on the box. Everyone but myself seemed to be completing their aims quickly. Jonathan took an early lead. Very little irrigation was taking place, or more accurately none except for some I did. There was hardly any bamboo growing either. A lot of tile placement was going on, and they were the cards being completed the most by the others.

Jonathan won, by completing the goal of seven cards and getting the bonus two points. In Doscoveries the wooden die feel light, and I don't really enjoy handling them. However the wooden dice in the Tokenoko feels much better.

Like Jonathan I too thought we were missing something about the game? What was the point of the other cards? More to the fact the gardener. I'm going to have to go on bgg and see if this is a common problem with them game.

It did hit me over night maybe this isn't really a four player game! Maybe it works better as a three player game.

I had a meh feeling after the game. Neither hated it or really loved it. The question I have to ask myself does this now warrant staying in the collection? It might hit the table again to try it with three players. But at the moment it is sitting on a short list of now two with Krosmaster Arena of being on my way out list.

Wrapping up the evening we first played Love Letter Batman. Jonathan just walked away the victory for this game getting four tokens in two games before the rest of us even got a single token. For the record that's two wins, and two eliminations using the Batman card to guess correctly a players card.

The evening concluded with a game of Lost Legacy and our great debate, controversy of the evening.

So what caused the debate? It was the investigation phase. We were all still in at the end of the game. So we started the investigation stage to find the Lost Legacy card. As per game rules, we started at one, and went up in order, for people to take their turn locating the Lost Legacy card. I was first to go on number four. I guessed Jonathan and was wrong. Next was five, which was Debbie and she had it in her hand and won. So Jo and Jonathan didn't get a go guessing. It was the way this ended that was the bit causing the problem. Made worse when it was pointed out that because Jonathan had an X card he wouldn't get to guess at all.

In this game if you had two discarded X cards you are eliminated. Jonthan had drawn one early, and had ended up with a second, so was handicapped unable to get rid of the card to get one to allow him to guess at the end. I did point out there were cards in the deck that could have overcome this situation. I had one I didn't play that would have got him out of the situation. Jo played one that would have by shuffling his discard pile back into the deck, but instead she used it on my discard pile instead.

I didn't see it as an issue. There is a lot of decisions and thought that has to go into playing Lost Legacy. If you have a low number card do you play it for its ability or hold on to it to guess early at the investigation stage? I played the one card The Saint early which stopped me being eliminated. I had also played a card that allowed me to look at two cards off the top of the deck, put one in the ruins and put one in my hand. So I had knowledge of the ruins.

The higher value cards in the game seemed at trying to eliminate players. So for me ones you definitely try and play.

I think the theme didn't help (Jonothan isn't a scifi fan), and a little confusion over the end part of the game with none of us realising until the end when we went through the rules for the investigation phase that low is good at that point. Which is different to Love Letter.

Five Tribes was definitely the big hit of the evening.

 

Use the force Luke

chatteris warlords, game night, magic, X-Wing Miniatures

Yesterday was the Hobbit Hole's X-Wing Store Championships. Which because of the required playing space (each game play area is a 3' X 3' space) and number of players was being held at the local working men's club hall (also home of the Chatteris Warlords).

I wasn't taking part, I dropped out of buying the X-Wing expansions and keeping up with the meta just before the Scum and Villiany expansions hit. Which was the around the same time Imperial Assault came out. I wasn't getting to play X-Wing, still not selling my collection as the models are amazing, plus I can only afford to follow one of these type of games, and I thought I'd stand more chance getting Imperial Assault to the table.

The new Ghost model from the Star Wars Rebels cartoon is beautiful. And what surprised me the ship is bigger than the Falcon. I may be tempted to get this one, for its model factor.

So why was I there then if I wasn't going to take part in the tournament? Well rumour before hand was there might be some other games being played as well on the fringes. So with some games and decks in a bag I had turned up in hope of playing some games.

My first game was against March Jamie (and yes I do give him some banter about being from March) and a friendly game of Magic the Gathering. This time my green/black deck worked! The two previous times I played this deck I struggled to get the lands needed to play cards. This time I got after a couple of mulligans I got a starting hand I was happy with, and was getting cards I could play, and the lands I wanted. The game ended up being very close. I was left with one point of health, as I delivered a finishing blow to get a win!

The second game I got to play was a three player game of Colt Express, once more with March Jamie and a third anonymous party. The third party was very keen to play this game, because they wanted to play with the time machine promo, and I knew the rules for it. Maybe a little too late we discovered the anonymous third party may or may not have been influencing the cards that appeared in their hand of cards to play! Not surprisingly that anonymous third party won! This was a casual game, and played for fun.

After that March Jamie and I continued the earlier Magic the Gathering theme by getting Arena of the Planeswalkers to the table.

At last!

I didn't win a single game of this out of the three we played. But I had a blast playing it. After each game we swapped to a Planeswalkers that hadn't been played yet.

There were some great moments, like when I was playing Jace and using his spells and enchantments to frustrate Jamie by sending his squads back to his reserves. Or when March Jamie found out about Ob Nixilis and his ability to simply destroy an adjacent enemy once a turn. That was funny, because he had moved a single unit strong water based creature next to him to attack.

Ok that last game there was a little bit of time pressure because the it was getting dangerously close to the end of the time the hall had been booked for. So I did a mad rush in with Ob Nixilis to take on the opposing forces when I should have moved everything up together.

But still as I said there were many fun moments that made the game very enjoyable. It's is such a shame that Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro are not getting more behind this game. This game needs more expansions fast. Such as a landscape expansion adding more landscape to the game, the 3D element makes the game much more interesting, not just visually but game play wise. It affects line of sight, bonuses when attacking and defending, and also movement.

A major element of this game is also the squad building, or would be if there were more squads. That's the other expansion this game needs, more so than landscape. Not being able to build squads or tailor your spells deck is really limiting the game.

The models are really quite impressive in their detail considering the cost of this game. Not the best quality, but surprisingly good. The play area is quick to setup, but you do need a large table to play.

Arena of the Planeswalkers is a blast, but let down by poor support. Which is a shame, it deserves to be better supported, FFG would have done so much more with this. Actually I'd love to see PlaidHat licence this to make an Ashes version.

So glad this got to the table, will definitely be playing again.

 

Choo Choo

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night saw Jonathan and I visiting the pad of Debbie and Jo to play a “marathon” play session of Ticket to Ride. Ok not so much a marathon because Debbie was catching a bus to Kings Lynn at 10:30 to sign fans autographs.

In the meantime our evening of trains geekery kicked off with a game of Ticket to Ride Europe.

Once more I was faced with an upside down map of Europe. My tickets seemed to fit together okish.

During our game play there was plenty of banter and laughter. And somehow I was completing tickets! What was funnier not until I was nearly out of trains did anyone notice I was getting to that point!

Finally scoring and I had won! My first physical game win in a long time.

Our next Ticket to Ride map was the latest one released the UK. None of us had played this map before.

For the UK map they introduced technology cards. Cards that you had to buy so that you could do things like create ferry routes, or create routes in Scotland (or Wales, Ireland and France), or create routes that required three and four cards to build.

I liked this addition to the game. Remembering you needed them before making a turn did slow one or two of the others.

My initial starting tickets were interesting, I don't think I had one worth more than five points. Plus I had a one point route I could complete straight away!

With lucky draws I was able to get the technology cards I needed to be able to complete my tickets. Then I started holding the cards needed to get the technology that would make each completed ticket worth two extra points.

After getting that I was trailing on the score board. But there was a way to catch up and go into the lead. Sitting on the board was a massive forty points in the form of a ten card route to New York. So I went for that. No one else was going for it.

I think it came as a surprise when I played that route and jumped massively into the lead. I was waiting for the “that's over powerful” comment.

By the time I had scored that massive route, I was within striking distance of triggering the end game. The others still had lots of trains in front of them. So that's what I did, I went for routes that would allow me to trigger the end game as quick as possible.

After the final counting I had won again.

As I said I loved the technology cards. At the start of the game with such short routes I was wondering how anyone could get to one hundred points. Were the designers being optimistic? But at the final count I ended up with ninety nine points. I was even pleasantly surprised that there were route cards worth over ten points.

We finished up our evening playing a couple of games of Codenames. Our teams were split up as boys against girls. Both games were won by the boys. I think this was the first time I've played where I also got to guess from the clue.

Another great evening of gaming, and I had a clean sweep of wins ^___^

 

Epic Evening

chatteris warlords, epic, game night, netrunner

Yesterday was Tuesday, and that means only one thing. Yep Tuesday night gaming at the Chatteris Warlords.

The evening started off with Ben beating me at Android Netrunner when my first ever shaper deck Jesminder Sareen went up against his Jinteki Personal Evolution deck.

I could make excuses like I don't play shaper, it's an unfamiliar deck, and they would all be valid in this case. However this deck needs a few more plays for its full short comings are known, and I start tweaking. Although for starters I don't think I'm making enough of her ability of avoiding the first tag each turn.

We followed that defeat up with a game of Epic using the demigod cards from the Kickstarter year one promos to construct a deck. On the back of the demigod id there are suggested deck lists. I played Tarken, the wise, while Ben played Valentia, Justice Bringer.

Unlike Friday I did some damage to Ben before the inevitable crushing defeat happened.

With the Kickstarter exclusive playmats the play area for Epic is nothing but an explosion of colour.

Next up Ben recruited four more players interested in playing Epic. So two packs of Epic got shuffled together and did a pack draft. Which is basically each player getting three piles of ten cards in front of them acting as the packs. Then each player selects one as a pack, and the drafting begins, and continues until each player has thirty cards in front of them, which is their deck to play with.

We then split up into pairs to face off across the battle field letting our champions knock seven shades of a brown smelly substance out of each other.

My first game was an easy victory, and a steep learning curve for my opponent. It certainly helps having a knowledge of Magic when learning to play. It's then a matter of mapping the relevant terminology from Epic to Magic. The one page reference sheet that White Wizard provide on the website is a great aid for learning to play, and also while playing to remind yourself what words like tribute, blitz, loyalty 2 mean.

Although there is this learning curve of the terminology I do find that it is easier to get and learn that the iconography of Cthulhu Realms.

Turn one of our second game my opponent drew and fielded an Elder Greatwurm.

If there was no deploying then this would be a turn one win card. Luckily there is, but this beast of a card had me worried. It just needed to get through once to end me. I needed to make sure I had a sacrificial champion to block it with at the end of each turn.

While I was worrying about the Elder Greatwurm, my opponent was chipping away my health with direct damage, and adding wolf tokens to their playing field.

I used an event to deal five damage to all attacking champions. It helped clear the field. Then a solution to the Elder Greatwurm arrived in my hand. Although the solution had one attack and no defense, as long as it landed a hit, it allowed you to banish the other champion.

While navigating the Elder Greatwurm I was landing damage on my opponent, until eventually I was able to deliver a killing blow to get the victory.

Why can't I play like this against Ben?

We have a growing Android Netrunner meta, and now Epic is starting to take root. At the end of May we will be having our first store tournament for Netrunner. Hopefully we will get the Tyrants expansion for Epic and also the store kits being done.

I just need to introduce folks to Ashes now…

 

He’s Dead Jim!

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

So one more time with feeling…

This post is about my play through of the game Pandemic Legacy Season 1 with my friends. So the following may or may not contain spoilers for the game. If you don't want to read possible spoilers for the game then stop reading now and join me in my next post.

Right if you are still reading this post let's begin…

Last night Debbie was back from her award winning performance of third tree from the left in the local amdram performance of Annie. Apparently the reviews were amazing. How good was Debbie's performance? Several dogs mistook her for a real tree, that's how good.

Before our game started with the agreement of Jonathan, Debbie and Matt, I swapped my character from Token Sexy Scientist to Wanda (I think that was her name) the quarantine specialist. I could now travel using the army bases, place one quarantine token anywhere on the board once per turn, and if a quarantine token was on the same city as me it stayed put if there was an infection there.

Before we got underway with the month of June, the legacy deck introduced equipment to the game. We then carried out the initial infection once more, decided our starting spot, along with our starting funded events (because of previous failures we were back upto six for this attempt at June).

I think this play through of June can best be described as close, but not close enough.

We had two cured diseases, about to eradicate one, nearly had army bases in all zones, and close to having seven quarantine markers out. But despite all that hard work, we got our butts handed to us and were overrun by outbreaks.

Our third loss. One more and we get to open the 'box'. The one you open after four losses in a row.

Time to reset the board and try again with eight funded events.

The faded are starting to get established on the West Coast of America. But we in reply are starting each game now with four army bases already in place. A great start of achieving one of the objectives very quickly. We got a few quarantine markers out on the board. Once more we cured C-ThatCam-Major.

If you are in a city with a faded in it at the start of your go, you take a scar. A scar is something negative, like you can hold one less card in your hand, or you get one less action a turn. I made the mistake of being in an occupied faded city at the start of one of my turns and had to take a scar.

Matt also made the same mistake, and took a scar. He then had to take another scar later. One more and his Zardoz would be dead. Guess what? An outbreak of a faded happened on the city he was safely sitting in. Zardoz was dead.

Below Matt gets all emotional at the death of Zardoz.

Matt had to take over one of the civilian ids to finish off the game. Which luckily was a couple of turns later.

We had army bases in all the zones, more than seven quarantine markers and was just about to eradicate C-ThatCam-Major for the win.

The fourth defeat had been avoided, but at what cost?

Before the start of July we get a bonus for completing June. Matt will get to choose a new character to play, which I believe he has already decided on. And we will be down to six funded events.

That's 50% of the game played. Wow, what an experience so far.

 

Friday night loses

epic, game night, netrunner

Friday I missed my now regular post highlighting the following weeks new releases from Esdevium (who I portray as being part of a Borg collective that is represented by Asmodee) that interest me. There was a legitimate reason for this, I was pretending to have a social life by being out gaming!

There is a gaming group in Wisbech that meets up on a Friday from 5pm until 9pm I believe. They used to be in a scout hut or something by the hospital, if I'm remembering this correctly. I hadn't been before because the timings were wrong.

However things change, and now for the immediate future the timings work out for me.

Then while at the Chatteris Warlords the other day I found out they had moved location. The gaming group (can't remember the name for the life of me) was now being held at the Conservative Club on Alexandre Road.

When I arrived at the gaming group (slightly late, because I got caught up chin wagging with my friend Nathan) Ben (from Warlords) and Jamie (who I have played Dicemasters with) were locked in a skirmish playing Attack Wing.

Despite having similar mechanics to X-Wing (well Wizkids did licence them from FFG) I've never been a fan of Attack Wing. It didn't appeal to me. From poorer quality models, a skirmish game designed for small ships which I didn't think suited the larger ships of Star Trek (FFG did it right with Armada), the fact I'm a much bigger Star Wars fan than Trek, and Wizkids usual insane expansion release cycle, I just wasn't in on this one.

Anyway when I got there Jamie was just finishing off destroying Ben's ship for the win. While I was waiting there was a table taken up with a couple of people sorting a gravity feed of the latest D&D Dicemasters set that they had just opened. Fools.

Anyway after the tears of defeat had been wiped away, some minor post game analysis, the three of us played a game of Epic the card game.

The deck of 120 cards that make up the deck were split into the four alignments that make up the game. We then randomly selected which deck we had and started playing a three player game of Epic.

Ben went first and was able to delivery twelve points of damage straight away to Jamie. I was next and tried to kick Jamie while he was down so speak, but he managed to avoid that attack!

Then Jamie hit me, followed by Ben, followed by Jamie, followed by Ben. I was out leaving Jamie and Ben to duke it out. Although Jamie was able to delay the inevitable, Ben went on to be the last one standing and basking in the glory of victory.

Our second game was a three player game of 7 Wonders using my pimped out copy of the game (sleeved cards, playmat and metal coins). Being the owner of the game I graciously let the other two beat me into last place. Once more Ben was victorious.

Apparently there was a Warhammer Conquest store competition at The Hobbit Hole on the Saturday, and Jamie needed to get a bit of practice in. So while Ben beat Jamie at Conquest I was deck building a new Shaper deck based around the new runner from the Kala Ghoda data pack Jesminder Sareen.

I've not played Shaper, I'm an Anarch through and through. But Jesminders ability intrigued me.

I liked the thought of being able to avoid a tag. Especially when the next card in that data pack Maya is taken into account.

The other card I love from that data pack is a Street Magic. I've got to try and get this into my Noise deck, and I definitely want this in my Jasminder deck. Street Magic in play can potentially stop so much nastiness happening when making a run.

I just need to work out what are the best econ cards, and ice breakers for Shaper now.

After Ben had shown Jamie the weaknesses in his Conquest deck, we had a four player game of 7 Wonders. Ben won this game also, and the only thing that stopped me coming last was there was a noob to the game also playing. But I did score better this time than the first play this evening.

Despite not winning a game, I still had a pleasant evening. I'll definitely be going back, just not next week because there is a Ticket to Ride “marathon” going on.