Category Archives: game night

game night

Thursday Night Star Realms

game night, new arrivals, star realms, tabletop

I think it's time to talk about Star Realms in the meat world, and not the digital.

Lunchtime yesterday I managed to get a couple of games with Jamie at work. These were the first games I'd played since getting the Crisis expansions. The trade deck was made up from the base set, the Crisis: Bases and Battleships expansion, the Crisis: Fleets and Fortresses expansion, from the May-June 2014 Game Day kit the Megahauler and Battle Screecher cards, from the second tournament kit Fortress Oblivion and Starbase Omega.

To cut a long story short I won both of our games. The first game was a comfortable win, however the second game was close. If it hadn't been for a couple of outposts taking the sting out of a 20 point combo attack, reducing the damage to 10 points, Jamie very well would of gone on to win the game I think. In the end I finished the game on 14 authority, to his -1 after taking a 10 point hit from me to end the second game.

Naturally we played using the new playmat. Playing the game on the official playmat the game looks amazing.

When I got home the official Star Realms storage box was waiting for me. Inside was a nice little letter from the shop I bought it's from in Germany plus a little packet of sweets. Sweets are always welcome no matter how small the packet is.

As the photo below shows you get an awful lot for your money with the storage box. The box itself is a strong cardboard with amazing artwork. White Wizard Games really do know what they are doing visually. The art work on the cards and official products like the playmat and this box is just out of this world. You also get four packets of card sleeves, four cardboard dividers, and three copies of the Mercenery Garrison outpost card.
The box will hold three base sets sleeved. Which is lots of space for a base set and the expansions that are out at the moment.
Before Luke arrived to play Star Realms I spent a bit of time sleeving all the cards I have. The official sleeves are pretty cool, the art work is the same as it is on the back of the cards. I like the fact there are plenty of sleeves included. There is more than enough to sleeve a base set, the Gambit expansion, the four expansions that make up the Crisis Expansion, and any promo cards you may have. And I still have spares left over for new additions. The sleeving of cards was followed by adding in the Mercenery Garrison to the trade deck from earlier. I somehow need to get my hands on three copies (I think that's the number allowed of this card) of the Starmarket promo card to add in, and I have all the promos, and expansions for Star Realms at this point I think.

Luke arrived and after the wolf pack had calmed down a little, I started to explain the game of Star Realms to him.

Just a quick aside, but now with all the cards sleeved the trade deck goes from a compact pile to a reproduction of the Empire State Building in cards. The sleeves really do increase the height of the trade deck considerably.

We played three games of Star Realms, with some coaching along the way. I hope I got the balance right between letting Luke make his own decisions and learning, and helping. Although I do based on my current slump playing against opponents in the app feel a bit of a fraud pretending to be an “expert” who knows what he's talking about. Between games and at the end I pointed out one or two of my favourite cards and explained why.

Near the end of the third game, Luke got a great combo working that ended up in hitting me for 23 points of damage.
Luke enjoyed playing the game and is planning to get the app so that he can get more practice playing the game before the next time we play.
Through out the evening what I thought was Strider knorring a bone was in fact him knorring the table leg. When caught he tried licking it as if that would fix what he had done! Below is a photo of the naughty Strider having been caught in the act.
So a great day with Star Realms playing with the cards. Great games (and I'm not saying that because I won, I love playing this game win or lose) and great opponents. I love the app and playing against opponents from who knows where. And this is great especially if you have no-one local to play with. But and this applies to all boardgames really, playing across the table from some-one, interacting, having that physical product interaction just can't be replicated. It's a different experience. I love both experiences, but it's really cool to be playing with the cards and seeing the reactions when you pull off those combos and hit them with a large damage score, and the banter that goes with it.

 

Another Gaming Night at TEC

game night, tabletop

Thursday night saw myself, Bouncy, Gavin and Gareth gather at The Entertainment Centre in Wisbech for the second games night there.

While Gareth nipped out to stock up on supplies from a nearby convience store the rest of us had a quick game of Cthulu Dice. Cthulu Dice is another dice game from Steve Jackson Games, home of Munchkin, Zombie Dice and Ogre. Unlike Zombie Dice this uses a single dice (I forget how many sides, more that 6) each with a symbol on representing some sort of forfeit, such as lose a token, gain a token etc. rolling the dice is treated like casting a spell, so you have to declare before rolling who you are casting against. You then roll the dice and act upon the symbol. Each player starts with three tokens which I think and I maybe wrong represent sanity. But basically it’s a last person standing game. I won both games that we squeezed in. It was a fun game, not as much fun as the push your luck Zombie Dice. As long as you don’t mind the theme of the two dice games these are great as quick family games play.

With Gareth back and stocked up on supplies it was time to play the first game of the evening Splendor. Gavin had wanted to play this to see if it was suitable for his kids. I’m glad he had asked to play it. I hadn’t played it before, but it had been getting good reviews, winning awards last year when it came out.



You will have to forgive me if I get this bit about the theme wrong, we skipped the theme to get straight to the game. In Splendor you are I believe a jewel dealer/merchant in The Renaissance. Collecting gems to buy resources, some of which have a point value that you use for scoring. Once a player has reached fifteen points that’s the end of the game. That’s a very basic description of the game. Which doesn’t do the game justice. The games mechanics reminded me a lot of Alhambra.

I didn’t win the game I came second from last, Gareth took the honours of winning. However I did enjoy the game a lot. Hence a copy is due to arrive today. This is another “gateway” game, easily accessible, great fun. I think next time I visit my friends Julie and Martin this game will be in the bag to play with them. I know they will enjoy playing this a lot.

The second game of the evening was one I’d played once before and own, Machi Koro (Julie And Martin enjoyed playing this) . I like Machi Koro a lot, it’s what some would consider a “gateway” game, or a light game. But more importantly it’s a fun game. While playing Machi Koro everytime someone rolled a dice and it came up with a number where others got money, a cheer went up from those receiving money. For a lot of the game I was leading the game having built three of my establishments. However all of a sudden I was losing money and not accruing it to buy the final establishment. Then all of a sudden Gavin had lots of money to buy the final two establishments to win. There was nothing any of us could do to stop him winning. How did this happen? None of us had been tracking his coins, and he managed to sneak under the radar to get the win. What a great game, I had so much fun playing.

Sadly being a work night it was time for me to go home. As I left a final quick round or two Zombie Dice was going to be played.

A great evening of game with great gamers. Looking forward to the next one.

 

 

Not a hipster game night

game night, lego minifigs, Munchkin, tabletop

Last night there was another game night round mine. The wolf pack had been relocated next door to spend the evening with Nan. Well I have to look out for the safety of my guests. It wouldn't be right having a guest mauled and eaten by the attack chihuahua.

The first game to the table was Star Fluxx. Star Fluxx is a favourite of my students, and I thought might be a good start to the evening. Star Fluxx is a science fiction themed version of the game Fluxx. The game starts off with the simple rules of draw a card and play a card. After that who knows what the rules will be or how you will win. That is all decided by the cards played. One card may make it that you have to draw three cards, another may add the rule that you have to play every card in your hand each time. Some one may play a card that changes what the goal (win condition) of the game is. Basically the game is in a constant state of flux (get it?) The first game of Star Fluxx we played was probably the shortest game I've played. It lasted for about four rounds. The second game last a little longer but not by much.

Our second game of the evening was Tokaido. In Tokaido you are traveling from Edo to Kyoto, trying to have the best experience possible by visiting temples, bathing in hot springs, painting incredible views, visiting temples, shopping and eating great food at inns. Which I didn't explain very well, and at the start the other players were not getting the game or enjoying it much. But once it clicked after two or three turns they started to enjoy it. By the end of the game I think everyone was getting into the game and having a good time.

Super Munchkin is a super hero themed version of Munchkin. Even so it's still all about the loot baby! Lots of dealing, undercutting, backstabbing, wandering monsters suddenly appearing, people being suspiciously helpful to others, all the elements of a great game of Munchkin. At the end there was three of us that could of won it. But the eventual winner really did deserve the win, we threw every wandering monster, monster power up, action we could or had left to try and stop them winning. But to no avail, our attempts failed and then super leaped over the finish line to win. Did I say that Munchkin is another of my students favourite games?

The penultimate game of the evening was Cash 'n Guns 2. I'd previously only played this game once with Nath at last years Eurogamer in the table top playing area. Basically Cash 'n Guns recreates the Mexican stand off, chose your favourite movie that has one whether it's the one from the end of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly in the cementary, or maybe like the one in Reservoir Dogs. The game plays upto eight players, is reasonably quick to play, quick to explain, and fun to play. It's also one of the few games I know where being the eldest pays off! Each player in the game takes on the role of being a gangster during the splitting up of the spoils of a big robbery. One player becomes the Godfather (the eldest person at the start of the game) and remains the Godfather until some-one else takes over the mantle by taking the Godfather token during the splitting of the spoils at the end of each round. It's handy being the Godfather because you can ask a player to “reconsider” who they point their gun at. But the Godfather also gets first pick of the loot. The winner after eight rounds is the player with the most loot and alive at the end. It's safe to say I didn't win, but I did last six rounds before dieing. This is a fun game to play. This game has the potential to become a gaming night staple.

The final game of the evening was Zombie Dice. A great push your luck dice game. I bet my fellow dice masters players wished I rolled like I do playing Zombie Dice. All my luck seems to happen in Dice masters. It's safe to assume I didn't come close to winning either of the two games we played.

The great thing about our group. Wow are we a group now? This is our second games night now. Do we qualify as a group? How many games nights do you have to have to qualify as a group? The great thing about last night is that we all have a similar sense of humour, love the banter, and able to take it all in good humour. A big theme of the evenings banter was whether James was a hipster. To be fair it was funny, and his denials and heated protests added to the laughs. It didn't help his case admitting he had been using beard oils recently, nor when googled that the first image of a bearded hipster with a flat cap looked like his twin!

You know me I will work lego minifigs into anything. This morning I have found the bits to make a hipster minifig of James as a present for him next time. It has to be done. When all the bits come together I hope they live up to the plan I have in my head. I think it will be better. We will see in a couple weeks time.

Anyway a fantastic evening once more, great company, fun games, awesome banter/conversation.

 

Firehouse Baby

flash point, game night, lego minifigs, new arrivals, tabletop

“Get the firehouse

'Cause she sets my soul afire

Get the firehouse

And the flames keep gettin' higher”

KISS – Firehouse

As part of my expanding lego minifig collection four lego minifig firemen arrived. Luckily these can be picked up relatively cheaply on eBay. So why have I got firemen? The photo above kind of gives it away really. It's mainly to use in playing the game Flash Point instead of the little plastic figures that come with the game (the blue figure in the photos is one of them). And also for when I do posts about the game I'll use them for a little photo shoot to illustrate the post.
I'm not claiming using lego minifigs as replacement game counters as my original idea. I had been thinking about it since getting Imperial Assault ( and ruled out because Star Wars minifigs aren't as cheap as firefighters). However over Christmas I did see a post on the UK Imperial Assault Facebook page where some-one had done exactly that and used Star Wars lego minifigs instead of the provided miniatures. It looked pretty cool.
In fact I'm half tempted to use the scientists I have in Pandemic games also. One thing I'll have to do is get a female minifig head or two to convert one or two of the firefighters into female ones. Why? Well it's the right thing to do, plus there are female characters in the game already. So to be true to the game I think some of the player counters should also be female.
I kind of like the idea of using lego minifigs as game counters. For me it adds an additional fun element to the game. It means I can create personalised minifigs that represent the person playing the game. So it can add that personal touch and be used as a cool memento of the evening (although that could get expensive – unless they bring the minifig back with them for subsequent games). Before I start doing this for my gaming evenings I must find a cheaper supply of minifig parts and accessories. eBay and the sites I use online aren't suitable for this as a long term project. Nice thing is if I can source a cheap supply of parts for my own projects, I can use them also with students in induction weeks (I mentioned this idea in a previous post).
Who would of thought I'd find a cross over between lego minifigs and boardgames. It was pretty dam obvious really.

 

A Game Night With Friends

game night, tabletop

Last night I held a gaming night at my home. Before everyone arrived I relocated the two canine criminals next door with Nan. They may look all cute and innocent in the photo below. But those innocent faces hide two of the most jealous attention seeking individuals you will come across.

Those two won’t let me speak to anyone even on the phone without getting jealous and demanding my attention be given to them instead. So for the good of the evening the wolf pack spent some quality time with Nan.
We started the evening playing Zombicide. Sam, James and myself controlled two characters each to take on M02 Food! from the game night scenarios. Our mission was to get into the fast food diner, and eat there. But before we could do that we had to collect the objective tokens in the other two buildings. However there was just the small matter of the zombie horde between us and our objectives.
The game kit comes with 6 Kyoko characters, the zombivor version of Kyoko, plus the ID card for Kyoko. There are also 6 experience trackers, six green Zombicide dice, and the campaign book. Sam played with the Kyoko character during the game. I used one of each of the items to form the basis of a little gaming night goody bag. The rest of the goody bag was made up with a Lego Wood Elf minifig, and a comic based on the rebooted Gauntlet video game. Well the game kit is meant to be used as “prizes” and I can only play with one Kyoko, so no point holding onto them all, and I like to share.
Back to the game, the spawn cards were mostly kind to us, our characters did get wounded especially after one or two extra activations. The game came down to a couple of key turns. We were surrounded by two fatties, runners and walkers stopping us getting into the diner.
If the dice went against us we would be wiped out. It was close but the dice were kind to us and we managed to clear away the zombies to buy us enough time to eat in the diner and escape. We got real lucky that an abomination wasn’t drawn. If it had been we would of been stuffed because we had nothing to kill it with. By that I mean weapon powerful enough.
Having successfully survived the zombie horde we moved on to Munchkin (playing the Deluxe version). Gary arrived just at the right moment to join us.
As the above photo shows I ended up with a character that was half dwarf and half halfling, or as I declared the love child of Thorin and Bilbo. I know, I’m not going to let biology get in the way of a joke, and what an image to plant in people’s minds.
As per usual for Munchkin our game consisted of backstabbing, revenge backstabbing, monsters getting power ups, curses, running from monsters, getting loot, killing monsters, making deals and lots of laughs. Sam ended up winning the game.
I hadn’t played Cards Against Humanity before, I was aware of it and its reputation. We played the original cards and one of the expansions. Sam gave everyone a blank card to write an answer on that would then get added to the deck of official answers. I have to say it was a very funny game, and it is definitely a game you need to have the right people to play with. I know Nath and his friends would really enjoy playing this.
The final game of the evening was Zombie Dice. We played two games. I narrowly missed winning the first game that was stolen from me by James. Who then went on to win the second game too. I like Zombie Dice, it’s a nice light game, friendly banter, a great game to end the evening on.
I really enjoyed the evening, great company, great games. Thank you Sam, James and Gary.