Category Archives: game night

game night

Pandemic Legacy March

Fenland Gamers, game night, pandemic legacy season 1

Once more I issue the mandatory warning that this post may or may not contain spoilers for Pandemic Legacy. If you wish to avoid any possible spoilers stop reading now, and I'll see you in the next blog post.

Right now they have gone let's begin…

Last night saw the rescheduled play of the month of March that was meant to happen last week, but got cancelled due to illness with one of the team.

Funny enough three of the team were this week infected with some form or other of the lethal man flu (or in the case of Debs just a minor cold). Mind you I've had this cough, chesty thing since just before Christmas. It just might be time to see the doc about it.

Back to the game, before deciding what funded events we were going to use this month (because of the win we were down to six funded events that could go into the player deck), it was time to read the scenario for the month.

We were getting some military support and now able to build garrisons instead of the research centres if we wanted to. We also got two new objectives to try and achieve along side the default objective of finding cured for the three curable diseases. Our goal was to complete two out of the three objectives.

There was some confusion though with the mission card, and building garrisons. We had no counters to show a garrison had been built. The mission card told us to open up in order three items when we saw the numbers. Did that mean now, or would we be hitting these numbers later on? We played safe and decided to hold off opening them. This was very confusing, not as clear as the previous card.

We got a new possible team member to add to our rosta. Whose speciality tied in with the garrisons. Plus one of our new objectives was to build a garrison in each of the six zones on the board. The other new one was eradicate one disease.

Once we had chosen our funded events, we drew the initial outbreaks, and then decided which of our three starting research stations we were going to start from. For the last time we also got to place a quarantine marker during set up.

This was an even closer game than February. We eradicated C-Thatcam Major, it was the easiest one to do. I only needed four cards to get the cure, and also now didn't need to be in a research station to find the cure. So naturally that was the first cure we got, and we also managed to eradicate it. One objective down.

Debs and Jonathan were busy keeping COdA-403b under control using quarantine markers. Our unnamed yellow disease got cured. We just had to find a cure for Sithite.

Epidemics happened, as did the outbreaks, COdA-403b came dangerously close to costing us the game. Our planning was based around trying to get Matt and Debbie in the same city to hand a single Sithite city card to Debs, so we could complete the second objective.

This was going to be closer than the previous month, there were five cards left, three by the time it was Debbie's turn. But she had drawn the the fifth Sithite city previously, no need to meet up with Matt. Just a dash to the nearest research centre and discover the cure, all in four actions!

We had won!! But only by the thinnest of margins.

After reading the end of mission legacy card, and seeing the extra rewards to choose from, we choose our winners rewards.

Still the mystery of the garrisons existed. We decided that we had already seen them, and opened up the relevant panels and boxes. There were garrison pieces, a new upgrade of having starting garrisons, a new build garrison action. This should have been done at the start. But that wording was soooo confusing. Jonathan vowed to go read spoilers for March to see what others did. Would this have made the month easier having a garrison in Sithite territory? Would we have got an easier victory being able to build the six required garrisons? Well we will never know.

I think the wording on the mission card could have been better, less ambiguous. Or were we just missing the obvious, and being dumb?

April is going to be HARD…

 

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner

Fenland Gamers, game night

Second Wednesday of the month? Must mean it was that time of month for the regular Fenland Gamer meet up.

The five amigos of Jonathan, Debbie, Jo, Kate and myself met up once more to play games, share banter, and generally have an enjoyable evening with like minded people. Which is pretty worrying really because if the rests minds are like mine this world is in serious trouble.

Our evening of gaming kicked off with Formula D or as it correctly should have been called

Driving Ms Daisy the Sequel

We rolled the black dice for our starting grid positioning. Jonathan and Katie drew for pole position, which meant a face off for the coveted spot, while Debbie and I also were in a face off for the third spot, leaving Jo unchallenged for the back of the grid.

Katie took pole position in the end, while Jonathan was in second, Debbie was in third place, I took the fourth starting position, with Jo bringing up the rear.

After doing all the hard work to win pole position, Katie stalled her engine and was left stranded on the track. Jonathan was able to straight away press forward with this advantage to try and snag the lead, and rolled a one to draw level on the track.

Debbie and I moved closer to the front two, while Jo edged a space nearer, but still at the back.

Katie was stuck in first for her second roll of the dice, while Jonathan took an early lead switching to second. Debbie and I over took Katie.

After the first corner I took the lead away from Jonathan. Which I quickly squandered allowing Katie, Jonathan and Debbie to catch me up and over take me while negotiating the second and third corner. Jo was still, pottering behind in last place, looking good to claim the title of “Driving Ms Daisy” away from Debbie.

Katie started to pull away from everyone, while I managed to over take Jonathan and Debbie. The corners in this game are such a great leveller. Careful management of the damage to your car, can allow you to catch up and steal the lead if the others are being much more careful. It was this carefree cavalier attitude to damage as a resource that saw me coming out of the three stop corner hot on Katie's wheels.

Down the long straight Katie and I shifted through the gears opening up the gap between us and Jonathan. It looked like Jo and Debbie would be fighting it out for the Ms Daisy crown.

As Katie and I started to work our way around the final set of corners before the home straight, Jonathan caught up to us. Katie edged a space lead over me as we game out of the final corner. But I was in a higher gear than Katie. Katie rolled her dice, she was one space short of the finish line. If I rolled a sixteen I had won. I rolled a fifteen. But my inside line put me one space away from the finish line too, but ahead of Katie on the board. I'd won, I'd be rolling first.

I took first place, Katie nabbed an easy second, while Jonathan crossed the line for third.

But there was still a battle going on through the final corners between Debbie and Jo. Neither wanting to claim the “Driving Ms Daisy” title. Last corner Jo was set up nicely to make a dash for the finish. Debbie needed to push her luck to catch up. She over shot the first of the final two corners by thirteen spaces!!! Her engine blew up, she was out of the race. Jo finished fourth, leaving the burning wreck of Debbie's car on the track.

Debbie had successfully defended her “Driving Ms Daisy” title!!! Well I suppose it would be more accurate to describe it as begrudgingly accepted the title again.

My win meant that out of the two plays of the game, I had continued the record that the owner of the game wins the race!

Raw fish!

Our second game of the evening was the drafting, set collecting game Sushi Go! Which had the soy sauce promo shuffled into the deck.

I'm not going to go into much detail of this game, except to say that I proved to be the most greedy on the night, managing to scoff my way to a victory.

Oh wow, I'd won the second game of the evening too! I was on a winning streak. How'd that happen? Mind you it made a pleasant change to my loosing streak Tuesday night with Netrunner.

Our third and final game of the evening was

Alhambra

You could tell I hadn't played my copy before because the cards were still in the cellophane. Something that winds Jonathan up a little. Mind games people, mind games. I had thought of totally throwing him off his game and taking yellow also. But I just couldn't be that cruel.

We were playing with the Castles promo (which can be picked up from the bgg store).

After our first round scoring, I noticed that once more Jonathan was employing his hog the cards tactic, and then make a mad purchasing rush towards the end to snatch the win. Jo decided to employ the same tactic, which you can see in the photo above they have half the deck of cards between them. Ok I maybe exaggerating that a little, but they had a lot of cards in their hands. It was interesting because it seemed Jonathan was advertising the fact having the cards fanned out in his hand. I know that was for him to see easily what he had. But I suspect there was a bit of the magician in him that likes holding them that way too. Jo on the other hand almost seemed that she was trying to disguise the fact she had a lot of cards.

But you know what? Despite having a load of cards in her hand, Jo would say there was nothing she could do or buy!!!! Which we did call her on.

During the game there were a couple of times because Debbie went before me, that she blocked me by either buying a tile I needed/wanted or took a card I wanted.

Second round scoring, Jonathan still hadn't kicked his tactic in to top gear, and was still lagging at the back on the scoring. But I knew any minute he would start building a scoring monster for the final scoring at the end. The rest of us were all within easy striking distance of each other. But Debbie was just in the lead.

Something went wrong for Jonathan, the tiles weren't falling for him, others were getting ones he needed. Final scoring hit, Jonathan managed to over take Katie on the scoreboard, but he was unable to catch Jo up, and ended twenty nine points short of the joint winners for the game Debbie and myself on ninety points.

The evening ended with some talk about Kickstarter and policing the streets of Commonville before we parted our separate ways.

What a great evening, I had a winning streak, played some great games with great people.

Tomorrow another Streets of Commonville play through. ^__^

That One Moment…

chatteris warlords, game night, netrunner

Last night saw another duel of bluffs and counter bluffs at the Chatteris Warlords gaming group as I took on a new opponent in Android:Netrunner.

The first game in our head to head duel was my newly constructed NEH deck against my favourite Anarch Noise.

My opponent took an early lead scoring agendas, mainly from my HQ. I was landing tags on Noise, and did cause four meat damage with a scorched earth. I managed to score some agendas to bring it back to a five/six score, with the runner being the six. Noise made a run on my HQ with two cards in my hand, both agendas. Noise had won!

I know where I have to go with this deck, I need to think about the ice, and doing more once the tags have landed. But for a first effort I didn't think it did too bad.

Our second game was my Noise against Core set Jinteki Personal Evolution. I know that with the Most Wanted List hitting particular Noise staples there will most likely be an exodus from the ID for other more green pastures. But I'm not abandoning Noise. We were instant bff's, and I stick by my friends.

My Noise deck was unchanged from last week. I wasn't going to rush into making changes based on one game. Before I start “tweaking” the deck I want at least a couple more plays before deciding what to change to correct any perceived weaknesses.

I was really doing well with Noise, I had Wyldside and Pancakes install, Street Beggar had cards on it, I had used Inject a couple of times, economy could have been better, didn't help Aesop's got trashed early by my opponent.

But with Faust installed, an unprotected Archives (for a good majority of the game), an R&D which had been left unprotected for a surprising length of time, with Medium sitting nicely with six virus counters on it (before a virus purge was eventually done) I scored five agenda points.

However during this golden spell my opponent managed to land some net damage on me taking out a KEY card! My only copy of Levy AR Lab Access got thrown onto the heap, although I had worse did do its job and get three cards back into my hand.

Levy was my only way to recycle my heap back into the stack, and it was gone!!!

You can guess what happened?

I ran out of cards. All the servers were iced up, I had no cards to fuel Faust to get in. I had ground to a stand still. Five agenda points scored, while my corporate opponent hadn't scored anything yet, and I was having to concede the game!

Losing the Levy was basically the key moment of the game. I was breaking in to the main servers at will until I ran out of cards. The card draw, getting loads of cards in to fuel Faust all worked to plan.

So despite earlier saying I wasn't going to tweak the deck, I knew I needed to tweak it for this situation. My first thought was to add a second Levy to the deck. But on my drive home I kicked myself for being so blinkered. I didn't need a second Levy, I needed Same Old Thing instead. It would give me a lot more flexibility than having a second Levy.

So there you have it back to back loses last night. But you know what? I still had a blast. I love this game, plus there are plans to have a draft matchup using the FFG draft packs at the end of the month. I'm looking forward to that.

For those remotely interested here is my NEH deck..

Near-Earth Hub (Upstalk)

Agenda (15)

1x 15 Minutes (Data and Destiny)

3x AstroScript Pilot Program (Core Set) (MWL)

2x Award Bait (Old Hollywood)

2x Chronos Project (First Contact)

1x Explode-a-palooza (Old Hollywood)

1x Market Research (Fear and Loathing)

2x Private Security Force (Core Set)

3x Project Beale (Future Proof)

Asset (19)

2x Adonis Campaign (Core Set) ····

2x City Surveillance (Mala Tempora)

2x Daily Business Show (All That Remains)

2x Early Premiere (Old Hollywood)

2x Franchise City (The Universe of Tomorrow)

2x Ghost Branch (Core Set)

2x News Team (Data and Destiny)

2x PAD Campaign (Core Set)

1x Reversed Accounts (Up and Over)

2x Shannon Claire (Data and Destiny)

Upgrade (1)

1x Cyberdex Virus Suite (Order and Chaos)

Operation (5)

2x Media Blitz (Data and Destiny)

1x Scorched Earth (Core Set) ····

2x Shipment from SanSan (Second Thoughts)

Barrier (2)

2x Wall of Static (Core Set)

Code Gate (8)

2x Archangel (Data and Destiny)

2x Pop-up Window (Cyber Exodus)

3x Tollbooth (Core Set)

1x Turing (Breaker Bay) ···

Sentry (7)

2x Turnpike (Data and Destiny)

2x Uroboros (A Study in Static)

2x Pup (Honor and Profit) ··

1x Gutenberg (Breaker Bay)

Cards in deck: 57 (min 45)

13/14 (17-3) influence used

3 cards from MWL

Agenda Points: 25

Cards up to Data and Destiny

 

Patrolling the Streets of Commonville

Fenland Gamers, game night, play test

At the end of my post on a playtest of the in development game Streets of Commonville was I'd like to try the game with less players. Last night that wish came true after our planned attempt at the month of March in Pandemic Legacy had to be rescheduled due to illness of a team member.

So last night Jonathan and myself patrolled the mean streets of Commonville, bringing justice and fitting up an innocent suspect for crimes they never did.

At Jonathan's request I filmed the game so that the play through could be later analysed by himself and his co-designer.

Since the play through last week there had been some “minor” changes to the rules and pieces.

I will say during our play through the dice really did hate Jonathan and me.

One of the most obvious changes is that Jonathan now had these fun little donut tokens to replace the printed cardboard ones.

The character boards were changed so that at the higher rankings you had a choice to make between having an extra dice or donut. The action tracking was now controlled by the roll of the “time” dice. I did like these two changes.

Technically the game won last night because we failed to arrest a suspect within the allowed time limit of the game. However we kept playing to see how much longer it would take us to complete the game (bottom left of the photo above, we used dice to track the extra game time).

I did feel that the game board was too large to explore for two players, and that maybe there needs to be a mid point board configuration between the full setup and the solo setup for two players.

Between the two sessions I had thought that the street tiles could be smaller, which Jonathan had already got in the works. Great minds and all that.

Surprisingly it took Jonathan and I approx 90 mins to finish the game. Although as I explained earlier we played until we completed the game. If we had kept to the rules and the game winning, I the game would have lasted about an hour (naturally that will be confirmed once the designers have reviewed the tape).

Although Jonathan had replaced the character tracking token, I thought to stay thematic the tracking token could be a wooden token in the shape of a cop (similar to the security guard wooden token in Burgle Bros. see photo below)

I think this would work thematically. The cop car riding round the streets of Commonville, and the cop figure for the character tracking.

At the end of the game Jonathan and I had a brief discussion about an ability that could be added for a character. It will be interesting to see if he runs with that one.

There will be another play through later in the week with three or four players, looking forward to that.

 

The Streets of Commonville A Playtest

Fenland Gamers, first look, game night, play test

Thursday night saw Jonathan play testing the game The Streets of Commonville with myself, Debbie and Les.

The Streets of Commonville is a multiplayer co-op update of the single player print and play game Inspector Moss: House Arrest. Which won the 2011 Solitaire Print and Play Contest on bgg, and was a 2012 nominee for the Golden Geek Awards Best Print and Play award.

Inspector Moss and Streets of Commonville are designed by the partnership of Jonathan Warren and Rebekah Bissell.

Which meant this playtest session we were playing with one of the designers. Not quite Eric Lang or Ignacy Trzewiczek but still a local hero and a pretty cool thing to be doing.

Before I go any further with this post two or three of the photos here are property of Jonathan who I “borrowed” them from.

The Streets of Commonville sees you working as a team of cops, uncovering evidence, finding suspects, and working to eliminate them from your enquiries, until you have one guilty suspect left.

At the moment the game uses a fixed board layout as suggested in the rule book. Apart from the centre tile, the rest are turned blank side up until players move around the board to new locations revealing surrounding tiles. A kind of fog of war mechanic. I like this hidden information, exploration element. When you reveal a tile, the players get to decide amongst themselves which way round the tile is placed. Although it helps that the other players show the tiles revealed on their go to the others while deciding the best way to place the tile.

I have been mulling with the thought since playing does this game need all the tiles used in the session layer out at the start. Or could the tiles be added as the game progresses and have a more organic, less predictable map, similar to the Zombie! game.

Jonathan showed us another version of the player board. Which I preferred, same number of upgrades but you have to make decisions on the bonus you get, between more dice or more donuts.

Below are my notes from playing the game that we were asked to make. Jonathan requested that I include them on the blog so they are easy to find and share with his co-designer.

My notes for Jonathan to refer to!

  • The player aid needs to have the turn summary on it.
  • There needs to be some way to record the colour of your character piece on the board. This could be just having the upgrade tracker being the same colour as the main piece.
  • There needs to be more options/ways for players to upgrade their characters. Time based upgrades?
  • The rules do need some work. I'd like to see an annotated diagram explaining the game tile.
  • There needs to be graphics in the rules illustrating game play and certain situations that may arise.
  • You could remove the placing of the street punks tokens at the start, add tiles with a symbol for the street punks on, and shuffle those tiles into the tiles used for the game. The placement would be more random then, allow more adjustment for the number of players in the game to control difficulty and opportunities to upgrade.
  • At the moment I think thematically you shouldn't be able to ignore the street punks. Enter a tile with street punks on, you have to deal with them first before being able to do anything else.
  • Currently you can pass as many dice as you like between players using your donut. If as planned this gets reduced to one or two based on the number of donuts you have, then the ability to upgrade becomes even more important.
  • Make the game real time? This would cure AP, or curtail it. There is potential for an alpha gamer in the current game, a real time clock may help control that too.

 

I enjoyed playing the game, at the moment it did at times seem a puzzle to solve of how best to optimise the use of the dice, who gets passed what to achieve the best possible outcome that turn.

But still there is the basis of a good game here. I'm looking forward to playing it some more, especially with less players to see how it fairs.

 

Warlords Running Tuesday!

chatteris warlords, game night, netrunner

Last night I was back over to Chatteris for the Tuesday night meet up of the Chatteris Warlords. This being my second visit meant I had to fork out moolah and join the working men's club that the meet is held in (£10.50 yearly membership fee once two brave souls nominated/seconded me as a member, then £1 for joining the Gaming group for the year, and finally £1 for attending the meet).

My evening started off putting the current iteration of my Noise deck together. Then testing it against if I remember correctly an NBN deck.

I hit the corp running, using a few of the tricks I had in hand like DDOS, and Streetpeddler. The deck was working as I had intended, except in the area of economy, which needs a little tinkering.

The game came down to one run, if I didn't get past the two ice and steal the agenda, then the corp would score it on their go and get the win. If I steal it I'm victorious. My only ice breaker is Faust. I break through the first ice, the second ice is rezed and I can't use Faust with it! Foiled at the last hurdle. Well we know how this story ends. I should have run on that server earlier in the game, I had solutions, particularly the anarch favourite Parasite.

We swapped alliagiances and I played my NBN Making News deck against the Shaper Kate. My NBN deck needs a lot of work. It's an initial idea. I haven't even looked into if any of the Data and Destiny Deluxe Expanasion with its new NBN cards would make an improvement.

Somehow I managed to get a win. I think if my opponent had been a bit more aggressive on running we may have been looking at a different outcome.

It's great to see a meta taking root. There is even talk of getting a store kit for a tournament! That would be cool.

Other games going on last night were X-Wing (with some of the new Force Awakens ships), and a game of X-Com.

X-Com is one of those games that has the app as an integral part of the game. Meaning it can't be played without it. Which as I have stated before is why I won't personally buy the game. I'd like to have a play of the game though. Apparently in a discussion about the game and its reliance on the app, it appears there may be rules on line from the publisher that allow the game to be played without the app. So yes I'd like to try the game without the app also. This could be the compromise that sees me buying the game (assuming the results of both plays are favourable).

If you are wondering still why go read the Golem Arcana Final Expansion post HERE. I've never played the game so I'm not aware just how integral to the game the app is. Can it be played still with out the app? The next release of Android or iOS could completely nerf the app. It has been known for an OS update to do that to apps until the have been rebuilt with the new libraries.

I'd love to hear Ignacy's response/view to this.

But I've digressed, time to look at my NBN deck.

 

Running with the Chatteris Warlords

chatteris warlords, game night, netrunner

Firstly a big welcome back to anyone who skipped the last post on Pandemic Legacy. Here's what you missed… Lol had ya. But seriously here is today's post…

Last night I went along to the Chatteris Warlords Gaming Group on the promise of being able to do some running against the corporations.

Chatteris Warlords is as the name suggests a board gaming group based in the Fenland town of Chatteris. It meets up on a Tuesday night at a working man's club in the town. This means you need to join the working man's club (an annual payment of ten gold coins of the realm, unless I could pass for my nan and get the over eighties price of three and a half gold coins), which entitles you to purchase beverages from the barkeeps, plus a yearly membership fee of one gold coin to join the gaming group it self, followed paying another gold coin on the nights you attend.

Luckily for this one time I was able to “try before I bought” and go along as a guest.

When I got there I knew to speak to a couple of people (from my visits to The Hobbit Hole my FLGS) so I wasn't going in cold, not knowing anyone. A game of 7 Wonders was in progress, while the war gamers of the group were busy setting up their terrain ready to do battle in whatever historical context they had chosen.

Another guest arrived from March also there to play some Netrunner. They had played before but mainly online.

We both knew that the other players hoping to play Netrunner were noobs (mind you I'm not much better) and only had core sets. With that information in mind, that is how I built my two decks for the evening, using just what was available in the core set.

So here is “Core Noise” the Noise deck I built for playing with last night.

Noise (Core Set)

Event (17)

3x Demolition Run (Core Set)

2x Déjà Vu (Core Set)

3x Diesel (Core Set) ····· ·

3x Infiltration (Core Set)

1x Stimhack (Core Set)

3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)

2x The Maker's Eye (Core Set) ····

Hardware (4)

3x Cyberfeeder (Core Set)

1x Grimoire (Core Set)

Resource (7)

1x Aesop's Pawnshop (Core Set) ··

3x Armitage Codebusting (Core Set)

1x Ice Carver (Core Set)

2x Wyldside (Core Set)

Icebreaker (8)

3x Crypsis (Core Set)

2x Wyrm (Core Set)

1x Corroder (Core Set)

1x Mimic (Core Set)

1x Yog.0 (Core Set) (MWL)

Program (9)

2x Datasucker (Core Set)

2x Djinn (Core Set)

2x Medium (Core Set)

3x Parasite (Core Set) (MWL)

Cards in deck: 45 (min 45)

12/11 influence used

4 cards from MWL

Cards up to Core Set

I had also built a NBN Making News deck that I had with me.

We sat down to play a game, I was given the choice of which side I preferred to play Runner or Corp. I naturally went Runner.

Cards shuffled, starting hands drawn, starting credits taken, the battle lines were drawn, it was Haas-Bioroid (Engineering the Future) v Noise.

First blood went to HB, I ran archives, stole an agenda. HB scored again, I stole a second agenda from archives.

The game came down to an agenda sitting behind a remote server. It had been advanced twice. The corp scores it they win, I steal it I win.

I used infiltration to confirm it was an agenda. Then I ran that remote server. I broke through the two ice defending the remote server using my Crypsis, I had three credits left. The dirty Corp player rezed a Red Herrings, I needed five credits to steal the agenda. Bugger I only had three! I was two lousy credits short. Two lousy credits cost me the win.

Well you know how the story ends, on their turn the Corp advances the agenda and scores it for the win!

Next time we meet we will have our “normal” decks with us. So we will be able to utilise all the nice card abilities that we are used to.

It was fun playing core set cards only. You forget when building a deck how limited your choices are, and how much you rely on certain cards.

In another part of the room a new game of Netrunner was about to start. This was going to be a match up between Noise as the runner and Jinteki (Personal Evolution). The decks used were the preconstructed ones in the core set.

I watched the game, and offered help and guidance where I could. Or was that hinderance? The game ended in a win for Jinteki via meat damage. The runner had self inflicted two brain damage after playing two Stimhacks. The corp had landed a tag on the runner, and after scoring Private Security Force, that gained “spend a click: Do 1 meat damage”. It had been a waiting game on the corp side. As soon as the runner dropped to two cards in his grip, click, click, click, you are dead.

While this game was being played we discussed how much the theme of Netrunner is so awesome, and just how thematic the game is. I just love the whole Android universe.

It was time for me to head on back home. I will definitely be back and joining the group. Playing with this group will give me my miniature gaming fix (Imperial Assault/X-Wing etc), and my CCG/LCG fix.

After doing a quick head count, including myself there should be six Netrunner players. The start of a local meta? Regular Netrunner who would have thought it possible?

 

 

The Prestige

Fenland Gamers, game night

During the seventies as a kid Saturday mornings were always Swap Shop with Noel Edmunds and Posh Paws or Tiswas with the attractive Sally James in her thigh length boots and tight tops, a male ensemble of co-hosts and Spit the Dog. Cartoons were interrupted by interviews, skits, outside broadcasts. Although not a red blooded male minded being interrupted by Sally James.

Fast forward a few decades, I still have a Saturday morning tv routine. Sadly no Sally James involved. It does involve coffee (with the aid of my aeropress I make the best in Wisbech – FACT), a bowl of seriously cinnamon cereal, and the previous nights to that was broadcast in the US of A, or new content on channels I follow on YouTube, while cuddled up in blankets on the sofa.

What's the point of this trip down memory lane? Well I was happily enjoying this weekend ritual, having a relaxed morning. Mum had been shopping, bought me a couple of burgers to cook for my lunch (yeah I know the cheek, you would have thought she would have cooked them for me too). Lunchtime came, I cooked my own lunch (the fore mentioned burgers, which I seasoned both sides of with salt, pepper, and crushed chillies, before placing on a griddle to cook). Lunch was then consumed while watching Precinct Ninety-Nine on Netflix.

I was in a happy place. Quarter to one I decided to get dressed, ready to leave for the afternoons gaming at two. Hey if I wasn't gaming that afternoon, I wouldn't have been dressed.

Then just gone one…

PING!

“Are you joining us today?”

– it was a text from Jonathan. I thought he was confirming I was going.

PING!

“Or have you forgotten your phone?”

– ok that was a bit weird, but I had previously forgotten my phone, so maybe not that weird. Then the penny started to click I better confirm the time we were meeting up to play.

“Yes 2pm isn't it?”

PING!

“It's 1pm”

“Oh rats give me 15”

PING!

“No problem”

Luckily as I had already pointed out I had not long got dressed. Quickly I deposited the wolf pack with Nan, jumped in the car, weighed up whether I had enough petrol to get me there without having to fill up in the way, or if it could wait until the return journey.

Fifteen minutes later I was there ready for playing our first game…

Trickerion

My late arrival had meant I had missed the pre-game warm up show by the biggest name in magic history…

In a previous post I discussed how thematic the whole look and feel of Trickerion was. It still holds true, this game just oozes the turn of the twentieth century theatre and magic shows of the time. Watch the mini series Houdini on Netflix or The Prestige with Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman if you aren't sure what I'm talking about.

Trickerion is a worker placement game, where you are building magic tricks using your magician, engineers and assistants, and then performing those tricks to earn fame points. The person with the most fame points wins.

This was a first time playing so Jonathan and I were bound to be asking lots of questions about rules and what various things did.

There are three different levels of tricks your magician can do, however the more difficult ones can't be done until you have the required number of fame points. I can see why this is so, but based on our play through of the game, I don't see how you get to the more difficult tricks. We didn't start hitting the required number of points until the final scoring!

Which brings me to my next point. We got to the last turn very quickly, and barely had time to get an engine going, perform many tricks, earn fame to be able to do more complicated tricks. There was a feeling at the end that maybe we had missed something out.

I love that each magician is different, specialising in a particular style of magic. That when you choose an engineer you get the choice between a male and female version, that also the female version has different abilities to the male. And this is true to the other help you can recruit also.

Trickerion was very enjoyable and thematic. I'd definitely play this again. But I'd love to know how you are meant to get to the better tricks. The score board goes up to a hundred, and we struggled to reach thirty.

Somehow in our game, going into the final turn I had a narrow lead, with Jonathan bringing in last place. Going into the final scoring I still had the lead, but somehow totalling up the extra scoring opportunities Jonathan sailed past Mat and then snatched the lead to win the game.

It was now time to manage a vineyard in …

Viticulture

It helps when you play a game you don't forget about scoring and the win condition, and get lost in other game mechanisms.

In the first round I was able to get a recurring credit each turn without completing a contract that I was able to push up to three, still without actually having had to produce anything. I never really struggled with money, and it took a little while for Mat and Jonathan to catch me up on the recurring money front.

Because of my financial advantage, I had the majority of the structures built in my vineyard early on.

But as I said it wasn't until Jonathan was within striking distance of triggering the end condition that I remembered I need to be collecting points. But by then it was too late, despite a desperate attempt to catch up and claw my way to victory, my struggle was in vein.

Jonathan's run of victories continued with winning our game of Viticulture.

Our final game of the afternoon was…

Glen More

The English version of this game I think has become my latest Grail game. However apparently there is an update on the way (but who knows when this will surface?)

Because there were three of us playing a dice was used to simulate a fourth player. The dice would be rolled, and moved that many places on the rondel, the tile at its landing place removed from the game. Plus the one value is covered with a coin for each of the resources in the warehouse. So instantly the resources in the warehouse were more expensive, but simulates this ghost fourth player buying them. I liked this as a way to add a fourth player to the three player game.

Once again I won the game with a big margin, breaking Jonathan's winning streak for this gaming session.

We now have a date set for the start of our Pandemic Legacy campaign. Our team of heroes has been assembled, a date set, the world just needs to pray that we are successful in saving it!

Despite being late, I had a great afternoon gaming with Mat and Jonathan. We played some great games, had fun, made plans. A fantastic afternoon.

 

Driving Miss Daisy

Fenland Gamers, game night, star realms, tabletop

Last night saw the monthly meet up of the Fenland Gamers. After a quick discussion about why I had handed in my notice at work, we had to decide on a game to play. I suggested that we played…

Formula D

I've wanted to play Formula D for a while, I even picked up a second hand copy off the Facebook trading and selling page late last year. Sadly I hadn't got my copy to the table. Over the previous weekend Gavin and I discussed what games we would be bringing along to the evening. Gavin mentioned he had got Formula D for Christmas, so being the lazy person I am (hey these games aren't light to carry you know), I encouraged Gavin to bring along his copy for us to play.

Before the race started we rolled for our starting positions on the grid. I was at the back of the grid in the fifth spot. The omens weren't looking good, my first dice roll, and I was rolling low.

I was going to have to drive aggressively if I was to make up for my poor starting position. I was determined to fight my way to the front and make a historic win.

We were playing the beginners rules.

I managed to claw my way into contention for first place with Jonathan and Gavin, by using some great rolls of the dice (oh yes I was rolling high when I needed to be low, truly the dice hated me), managing my damage, and when I'd take it on corners to catch up and put myself in the running.

Katie managed to join the battle for first on the last two or three corners. However Gavin stole first place, with a close second going to me. I think Jonathan was third with Katie coming in fourth and a distant last Debbie.

In fact it was Debbie and her distance behind the pack that inspired the title of this blog post. Yes it seemed like Debbie was driving Miss Daisy in her little plastic formula one car round the race track.

In an old episode of the Simpsons where if my fading memory is not playing tricks on me the Simpson family are racing round a kart track, Marge says “slow and steady wins the race”. This indeed did seem to be Debbie's game plan for Formula D.

Now as you may have guessed there was some “gentle” banter at the table about Debbie in last place. And while Jonathan was plotting to take any shine off a historic win (if I had gone on to win it), Debbie too was plotting her revenge for the next game.

Wow I enjoyed playing Formula 6 a lot. It's more than a simple just roll and move game. There are some tactics to employ. The game cleverly uses different sided dice to represent the different gears of the formula one car you are racing in. These dice have different number ranges on them. For example in fourth gear you will roll the green dice that only has values in the range seven to twelve.

You have to stop a predetermined number of times on each corner. One corner may be once, while another might be three times. So you have to plan which gear you need to be in so that you are rolling numbers that allow you to stop the required number of times.

Then you have damage to your car, end up adjacent to another players car, and you both roll to see if you take damage. Fail to stop the correct number of times on a corner, take damage. Take too much damage and your car engine blows up. So managing your damage is an important factor. In the advanced version of the game, this damage is applied to more specific areas of the car.

The game does a fantastic job of simulating the “thrills” of racing round a track. I'm not a formula one fan, I find watching it boring. But I still enjoyed playing Formula D.

Hopefully Jonathan's idea of having a Formula D league can see the light of day for our group. It certainly would be fun.

The next game of the evening to hit the table was…

Ticket to Ride: Europe (TTR:E) aka Debbie's Revenge! Her part in my downfall

I've played TTR:E only within the rather excellent app version of the boardgame. And only then a couple of times at most.

Naturally the map for TTR:E is a map of Europe instead of the U.S. Of A. for the original game. We didn't play with the stations, a decision Gavin, Jonathan and myself would later on come to regret. However we were using the other additions of tunnels, ferries and long routes.

I really wasn't focusing during the initial stages of the game. I had not a clue what I was doing, what carriages I should have been collecting, the optimal routine I should be having to complete etc etc.

Did this lackadaisical approach at the start of the game cost me the game? Well it didn't help.

There was a lot of routes being built in Northern Europe by everyone. It was becoming very clogged, and gave Debbie her first chance to get her revenge by building a route I needed. It happened again later on, forcing me to try another way to complete my longest route. I needed two links to complete my long route and get twenty one points after being blocked by Debbie, and forced to find another way to complete my card.

I had one pink in hand, was planning to take the multi coloured engine my next go ready to complete my long route. When BANG! Katie played her last four trains to complete her card and end the game!

I had finished an eight point route only, got totally shut out by Katie and Debbie from completing my twelve point route, and now had failed to complete my long twenty one point route by two pink trains.

So during the end scoring while everyone else was happily adding on lots of points for completing cards, I went backwards. If Katie had scored nine more points she would have lapped me on the score board. I think this was my lowest scoring game of TTR ever!

The final game of the evening was the new crowd pleaser…

Codenames

So that the teams were even I sat this one out.

After taking a call from Kate, I had a bit of good news about a potential opportunity. Which was followed by a call from Nath. Who I thought was calling to gloat about ARSEnal being three two up against my beloved Liverpool. But no, he was telling me to take my go because he was going to win on his next go on Star Realms.

I took my go, which did some damage to him, but more importantly parked an outpost on the board and increased my authority. Which meant Nath was not able to get the win he was predicting. Although to be fair I only delayed the inevitable by about four turns.

But back to me being a bad Dad and disappointing my sons plans for victory at that moment in time. After Nath had taken his turn I got a text that was one word “lucky”. About five minutes later when Liverpool had scored a last minute equaliser in extra time I got another text “lucky lucky lucky”.

Back at the gaming table the game of Codenames was progressing. Now both teams ended up winning a game each. However I have to say I enjoyed spectating this game, and trying to work out which word(s) were meant by the clue.

This was another blooming brilliant evening of gaming, with great company. Thanks folks.

 

Senior moments

Fenland Gamers, first look, game night, tabletop

Last night the worker placement fan club wing of the Fenland Gamers met up to make wine by playing Jonathan's Christmas present from his son Viticulture.

On my way to the meet I realised I had forgotten my 6S, which meant I was going to have to ask Jonathan for copies of any photos from the evening for the post. Seconds after I arrived, Jonathan pulled up in his car. He had just nipped home because he had forgotten his phone also!

We were playing the essential edition of the game, which is basically the second edition of the game plus some hand picked modules by the game designer Uwe Rosenberg from the Tuscany expansion.

The essential edition of the game is like the special edition Star Wars, the second edition and Tuscany expansions will not be reprinted, the essential edition is it, the only one you will be able to get.

While setting up the game it became apparent very fast that Jonathan had forgotten the games money. Which meant you guessed it, Jonathan popping home to get the games currency. Luckily the secret Bat Cave that Jonathan lives in was nearby.

The delay while Jonathan fetched the moolah was worth it. Before Christmas Jonathan had a slight inclination that he'd be getting Viticulture so he hunted down the metal coin pack for the game. I can tell you this bit of pimping the components of the game was well worth it. The coins are gorgeous. I can't believe that they won't be making these any more, that's a mad decision. The coins look fantastic, have a lovely feel to them.

Above photos curtesy of Jonathan

Playing the game was a delight, I really enjoyed playing it. There are some very nice mechanics in the game.

First off is the Waking mechanic, where you decide the order of play that round. If you really want to go first and grab a particular place on the board, you can grab that (if it hasn't been chosen already), but you get no bonus. Otherwise you may decide it's more important to gain one of the bonuses, the further back in the turn order you go the more powerful the bonus. These bonuses range from drawing cards, getting money, or victory points to having an extra temporary worker to place.

I like this mechanic for deciding turn order, it's similar to Five Tribes. Except in Five Tribes you are deciding how much you are prepared to pay to go first.

Similar to the Manhattan Project and Coal Baron where by taking an action first you influence the cost of that action for the next player that turn. Which enables you to have a negative influence on the other players. In Viticulture this is reversed. Meaning the second player to take the action gets a positive bonus, often repeating that action again, for instance instead of playing one visitor card they can play two.

Breaking each round into seasons, and having actions only available in a particular season is a nice touch, and helps get the theme over really well.

Speaking of theme, I think this game oozes theme. The whole vineyard, making wine, comes across really strongly.

I love how victory points are not just something you are striving to gain, but also a resource you can spend to gain an advantage.

I took an early lead in the victory points, which I was able to maintain for most of the game, even when I was manipulating the victory points to get some advantage on the board. Most of my victory points came by lots of little actions and bonuses, Mat and Jonathan got most of their points from completing orders. I think I only completed two contracts, for six or seven victory points in total.

Yes the completed contracts give you more victory points, and recurring money. But the chipping away tactic I used in this game seemed just as effective. I did reach the twenty victory points first, triggering the end game.

That end game or final turn was very tense. Mat and Jonathan were only a couple of points behind me at this point. A completed contract or two, which they looked like they could do, would push them to victory. I needed to disrupt their plans, and try and complete a contract.

I knew my only contract was not something I could complete. I didn't have the resources.

During the Summer phase I played a card that allowed me to discard a couple of cards and draw one of each type I had discarded. It was risky, I needed to top deck a good card to help me. It paid off.

During the final Winter phase I had to try and stop them completing contracts. Mat completed one, taking him two points ahead of me and into the lead. Jonathan took the draw contract action, phew that helped me ALOT. I followed that action, but I got the bonus of drawing two contracts, hoping to get one I could complete. Phew the cards were smiling on me tonight. I had a contract I could complete for two victory points. I had top decked again.

However by completing his contract first, Mat had given me the win! Being second to do the complete contract action meant I not only got the two victory points for completing my contract and drawing level with Mat on points, I also got an extra victory point giving me the win!

As I previously said, this last round was very tense. It was so close, any of us could have won. Jonathan had been frustrated in that last round unable to complete a contract. Mat nearly won. But Lady Luck and the cards smiled on me.

This was an awesome game, it will definitely go on the wishlist.

Afterwards Mat showed us his new game Trickerion – Legends of Illusion. We didn't play it, that will be for another night. But this worker placement game about being magicians and performing magic looked amazing. It was so thematic, and had a look and feel that really invoked the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the magic acts of that age like Houdini, and the theatres of the time.

The light brown faded colour scheme really made the look of the rules and player aids fit in and feel part of the whole period it was set in.

So the game looks beautiful and thematic, I can't wait to play it.

Whilst looking at Trickerion Jonathan confessed with out any prompting or arm twisting, that he had a chequered past as a magician! So we have said when we play the game Jonathan has to set the mood of the evening by performing some magic!!!

We also after using my discussion piece I had taken along (the Pandemic Legacy rule book) come up with a plan for getting the game to the table.

This was a really awesome evening of gaming, I had a great time (and not just because I won for once). Thanks guys for a great evening.