After a relaxed start to the day (which I’m totally allowed seeing as I’m on holiday) I taught Nathan how to play the two player game Splendor Duel.
As usual I didn’t win. If my bgstat app is correct (and why wouldn’t it be?) I have never, I’ll repeat that never won a game of Splendor in any of the editions I have owned or own! Bloody good job I enjoy playing it.
The rest of our day was taken up by a dentist visit for Nathan, cooking “not spaghetti bolognaise” (ask Diego why it was not the dish, ok adding baked beans, mushrooms, and using chorizo, may technically mean it wasn’t), and Nathan wanting to watch the evenings football match between Southampton and Man City.
Today saw us pop into town for a Burger King lunch and a visit the local boardgame shop.
I had gone there with the purpose of just getting the Mutant Genesis expansion for Marvel Champions. However the Storm character expansion joined it, along with the Agora expansion for 7 Wonders Duel.
As soon as we got home (after a coffee) we played an all in game of 7 Wonders Duel. That’s the core game plus the Pantheon and Agora expansion.
We both really enjoyed the game. Agora brings in a new decision, tactical element, and win condition.
Control all six senate chambers and you get an instant political win.
A victory I was one chamber away from achieving at the start of the third age. However Nathan only needed one more symbol for the science win. He was going first at the start of the third age, and was hoping for a science card as an option to buy.
Obviously the tension built up as I laid out the cards in the third age pattern. It was down to the last two cards to be drawn and placed. Indeed one of those cards was not only a science card but the sixth symbol he needed. Instant win for Nathan.
Yes playing with everything means the game takes longer to setup and play. But I think it’s worth it. I like the extra stuff going on. You can’t afford to not to be paying attention to what your opponent is collecting.
The area control element of the senate chambers is cool. Having the majority in a chamber gives you control and some sort of power up you get to use through out the game. Plus points for end of game scoring if it goes to the bitter end.
Yeah I think we’ll be playing all in from now on. Just need to get my own copy now.
Right time to make tea followed by Star Wars Outer Rim (Nath’s favourite boardgame).
Last night was the first and only session of the Christmas gaming program for Fenland Gamers that I could attend this year.
Traditionally there are three gaming sessions organised. However work rotas meant I had shifts during two of them. It was just luck that I was on an early yesterday and thus able to attend.
It was really great to be seeing friends again and playing games with them.
After some catching up, Katie, Jeff, and myself played Dune Imperium ALL IN!
By that I mean not only was it the core game and the first expansion Rise of Ix. But also the second and latest expansion Immortality.
Wow is this a table hog now.
For me Dune Imperium is like Istanbul. A great core game, that gets better with the expansions.
Granted when teaching to new players things might look daunting. But after a couple of turns, or just the first round, everything clicks into place.
I love what Immortality brings to the game. More decisions to make, more options.
In our game it was looking like Jeff might trigger the end of the game on the ninth round. I had decided not to go for one of my intrigue cards end game scoring conditions as I just didn’t think I would get a chance to complete it.
I had decided instead to try and get as close as I could to ten points and hope that my end game intrigue cards would be enough to snatch victory away from Jeff.
In the end after some beautiful minding it, I managed to grab three victory points to trigger the end of the game, and get two more from end game intrigue cards.
But that moment was all down to stealing an alliance token from Katie, and grabbing a couple of others by winning the combat, and doing research that enabled me to progress up faction alliance tracks.
It was not an outcome I had planned on that turn. But as I got closer to triggering the end of the game, one false move and we’d have gone to another round. Which would have given Jeff a window of opportunity to grab the victory instead. Everything had to be done in the correct order. Luckily I didn’t slip up.
There is still plenty to explore with the Immortality expansion before I talk more about it. But so far after this initial game I love it.
It was great to be gaming again. Tomorrow I’ve spending New Years Eve with Nathan so there will be a game or two there (even though it’s a whistle stop visit).
Now to start putting dates up for the next regular Friday evening gaming sessions.
Friday evening was once again a club night. Attendance was more pre-pandemic numbers than post. Whether that’s due to illness, time of year (it is the busy run up to Christmas) who knows?
Our first game of the evening was the classic, destroyer of relationships, Survive Escape from Atlantis.
This is such a fun game, and a members favourite.
Despite being victimised by the others (it’s so easy to make that claim in this game) I didn’t come last. I only got one survivor to safety but it was enough to put Marcin into last place with his lower scoring two survivors. At the other end of the survivor safety spectrum (more than three getting to safety) Ben managed to pip Colin to the winning line by a single point.
Our second and final game of the evening was Last Will.
Ben was declared the winner of this game. We still had a round to play. However with our hosts wishing to close up we had to finish the game.
The deciding factor in declaring Ben the winner was he needed one more action to trigger the end of the game, whilst the rest of us required more than that.
A fun evening, lots of banter.
Saturday afternoon saw me playing a two player game of Scythe with Charlene.
It was meant to be a three player game but illness meant the third player had to drop out at the last moment.
I was going to use the Automata as a third player. But I need to read the rules on running the Automata first before doing this.
We did use the modular board and that was the best idea of the afternoon.
Additional rules used
After randomly placing the faction markers round the board (all but one go out if using the Fenris factions as well, I removed that remaining faction from those that can be chosen), Charlene and I randomly chose player boards. Despite having the higher board I let Charlene chose first.
This will amaze folks but I did not go with my one of my favourite factions. Instead I gave Vesna a try.
Factions played
After choosing our factions we removed two of the modular boards. That was why using the modular boards was a great decision.
I had previously played Scythe two player with Jeff but that was with the “regular” board. Which isn’t best for a two player game. You can be on opposite sides of the map, never bump into each other.
With the modular board removing two of the boards shrinks the map so you are closer together, and you are more likely going to have to battle it out with the other player for spaces.
The way the map tiles were the Vesna river walk was useless and an early mistake for me. I should have built the tunnel first not the mech. Charlene had an easier time and was able to access more of the map without having to do either!
I liked the resolution tile Deja Vu. It was fun. And how our end game was triggered. If Charlene hadn’t triggered the end of the game this way I would have triggered it on my next go by placing out my sixth objective star.
After the dust settled and money counted, I won.
If I play Scythe two player again it will only be with the modular board.
We finished off the afternoons gaming with a game of Splendor Duel.
I hadn’t played Splendor Duel before, nor had Charlene.
This is a two player only version of Splendor. Yes Splendor can be played two player. But sometimes like 7 Wonders Duel, the two player version gives you the same experience as the original but just takes it to another level.
I really like this as a two player game. Like it’s bigger brother it appears I’m not very good at it. I haven’t won a game of Splendor in a long time. And this two player experience was no exception and continued my losing streak.
I can see this being added to the collection to play with Nathan. Or on the rare occasion I get to play a two player game with Jonathan.
That was my gaming over the last couple of days.
It’s back to work for me now, and gaming when it can be fitted in.
No gaming took place last night. After a pretty cool roast dinner we watched the Wales vs England match, and then John Wick 2 (we had watched John Wick the previous night, and guess what we are watching tonight?)
Why a roast dinner last night?
Nathan gets all the credit for that. I guess he fancied it while I was down visiting, because Sunday he said he had bought the stuff to make one, like a whole chicken, etc. Only problem he had was he’d never cooked a chicken before. So cooking duties fell onto me.
I’m still getting used to his oven, but the Yorkshire puddings came out ok.
I got to go into Basingstoke Centre today, and visit a gaming shop called The Gaming Den. Lots of stock, which is nice to see. I could easily have spent lots of money there but I was super strong.
Ok it helped that a visit to a stationary shop to pick up some index cards turned out to be a tad more expensive than planned.
Once home I quickly wrote out a couple of recipes that he’d asked for on the index cards and put them on Nath’s whiteboard for him.
The afternoon saw me making chicken noodle soup and visiting the Stonemaier web store to order the three new realms that were released today.
But whilst on the virtual store I was pleasantly surprised to see the Tapestry play mat had also been released.
I was aware Jamey had been looking at doing a play mat for Tapestry. But it had escaped me that they were actually in production. So I was definitely not expecting them in the store today.
After having the chicken noodle soup with slices of a fresh baguette to help mop it up, Nathan and I watched a brief Roll for Crit how to play for Marvel Champions.
It refreshed my memory (I don’t play this nearly enough) and gave Nathan an overview of the game.
It was enough so that we could play the following match up.
Nathan played Wolverine, whilst I played Phoenix.
Things seemed to be going well. The threat level of Thanos’s scheme was under control (by Phoenix) whilst he was getting thumped by Wolverine.
Then it went all Pete Tong as they used to say.
Thanos thumped Phoenix for a massive seven damage, followed by his minion Black Dwarf finishing the job off.
This left Wolverine to stand toe to toe with Thanos trading blows.
It was a heroic effort but in the end to no avail as Thanos managed to complete his scheme.
We really enjoyed going up against Thanos. With a better card draw we might have won. I think that is the difference between this game and the one with Diego with Ultron.
In that game our hero selection was totally unsuitable for the villain and his schemes. We got thrashed.
Here the match up seemed more appropriate. Phoenix keeping the threat under control whilst Wolverine did what Wolverine does. It felt like we had a chance.
Nathan really enjoyed our game of this. So it will find a place in the bag on future visits.
Our final game of the evening was a game of Rolling Realms.
Another winner with Nathan, despite me winning. But the scores were pretty close.
Our evening is finishing with the third film in the John Wick series.
There seems a nice symmetry to this months gaming.
November started with me visiting Nathan and playing games with him, and it ends that way too.
It means so much that I am able to spend time with Nathan. That wasn’t always the case over the last few years. Caring for Nan meant it wasn’t possible to get away for a couple of days to visit him. It was a heavy price to pay. But we did willingly out of love for Nan.
After having toad in the hole with onion gravy for tea Nathan and I played the latest expansion for Wingspan, and also stand alone two player game, Wingspan Asia.
But before we played I had to open up the box it came in (yep I hadn’t even done this since it arrived a couple weeks back), take off the cellophane, punch cardboard, and quickly read up the rule changes for duet mode.
I’m not sure why but playing Wingspan with unsleeved or “naked” cards felt so so wrong. It just didn’t feel right.
Wingspan Asia can be used as a straight up expansion for Wingspan by just shuffling the cards that come into the box with the core games plus any other expansions. Which is how it’ll probably end up for me.
This expansion makes it so Wingspan can also be played by six or seven players in what is called flock mode. Or as I will refer to it as “not for me mode”.
Then we have the final way this expansion can be used, and that is duet mode.
Duet mode is a two player variant of standard Wingspan that adds a duet board, and new end of round objectives based on that board.
You get to place a piece on the duet board when you play a bird or a card ability allows you put a bird on the board. Where the piece goes on the board depends on the habitat the bird was played on, plus either the food type used to pay for it, it’s nest type, wing span, or direction looking.
Some of the spots on the duet board also give you a bonus of some kind when a piece is placed on it, like drawing a bird card, or getting an egg.
If you can’t or don’t want to place a piece on the duet board you can instead place it on the area in the bottom left of the board. Then on a future turn remove the piece from there to reset either the food tray or the bird market place. I like this a lot. Ok I didn’t do it. But just having that there as an option is pretty cool. It also makes that placement of the duet piece a harder decision.
I like what the duet board brings to the table in a two player game. It adds a new tactical element and decisions that need to be made that encourages the playing of birds.
I also like that the first player marker goes to the player that didn’t win the end of round scoring. It almost feels like an attempt at a catch up mechanism!
This may just be how I play Wingspan from now on when visiting Nathan. Which is the only time I play Wingspan two player.
The bgstat history books will record that I beat Nathan with a tucking engine!
Today, as the events already told were yesterday, has seen a relaxed start to the day.
Starting with my regular everyday breakfast of a mug of coffee and two Nevill’s Pains Au Chocolat. What can I say I’m a creature of habit. Except when Tesco don’t have them. Then I have to improvise.
After a relaxing soak in the bath reading a book on data science, it was time to take a trip.
A trip to the local shops sees a charity shop find that no-one boasts about on the Facebook boardgaming groups I belong to. I got a large saucepan and a couple of trays ideal to make Yorkshire puddings in. I need, well Nathan needs that big pot. Tomorrow I’m turning the left over chicken from our roast today into chicken soup for him. He didn’t have a pot large enough for that.
Lunch for us was an impromptu fry up to use up the remaining sausages Nathan had in the fridge, and some mushrooms just on the right side of edible.
I did start to look at the Star Wars card game Sabacc that Nathan bought whilst he was State side the other month. We’ll play that over the next day or two for sure.
Our first game of the day was Tinners Trail.
I’ve only played this once before as a three player game with Jeff and Jonathan.
So playing it as a two player game was interesting.
It wasn’t an unenjoyable experience. I just thought the bidding was a little flat with two players.
History will show that Nathan won by a massive two points.
Right I have a roast dinner to cook before some more games this evening.
It’s a day or two since the D&D taster session took place. Even longer since the D&D campaign was held. But here we are with the post mortem for the taster first.
Despite a less than conducive environment for playing D&D everyone had a good time, and enjoyed themselves.
The adventure that I went with for the session was The Lost Tomb of the Delian Order (by Matt Colville).
I started the adventure off at the foot of the hill on a dusty road with the owner of a local inn hiring the adventurers to investigate missing people from the nearby village.
The inn keeper gave the party a bloodied bone and told them to break it when they got to the entrance of the tomb. The bloodied bone was a magical item I created to cast the spell aid over the party when it was broken into two.
Sadly the party did not do this.
They finally did use it over the scrying pool.
On a practical level I used The Giant Book of Battle Mats (generously given to me by Shane) along with scatter terrain to give the layout of the tomb.
I should have used my Big Book of Battle Maps because table space was once more limited. I thought before hand we would be using two of the folding 6ft tables.
However unbeknownst to us all, the evening of our taster session at the community centre it was also open mic night.
In my opinion they would have been better off watching us play D&D than listening to the public murder of songs.
That’s why earlier I said that the environment was less than conducive to playing D&D.
The volume of the “performers” murdering rock and pop songs was bordering on making it impossible to play.
The Wizkids 2D miniatures worked well. I think the players enjoyed having something to represent their chosen characters.
The puzzle in the adventure appeared harder than I thought it was. The other group I’ve run this adventure with got it pretty quickly. A fact that when strategically shared with Gavin made him determined to solve the puzzle.
I did give some time at the start of the session for the players to read their character sheets and ask questions. There was a whistle stop tour of the abilities and how an ability check works.
Having multiple copies of the Starter Set rulebooks available was a good call. I think for a taster session for new players they were just right. Especially for finding out the details of the spells. Easier to navigate, and a lot less to search through.
I did half the damage that the goblins did in combat. It seemed the right thing to do considering they low hit points first level characters have. It meant I was able to avoid a tpk. Although it was looking likely at one point!
Having The Arcane Library PC Cards on hand with the pregen details on was useful, and worked well for me.
I think that’s about it for now. Who knows if and when I’ll run another taster session. Maybe it’ll just be an adhoc one one shot for this group instead.
Yesterday was meant to be a day off, with some gaming arranged for the evening.
But things change, and I ended up in work for three hours making sure we had enough people in store.
The important thing is that the gaming went ahead.
For me it was an evening of new to me games with great company.
Our first game was Jonathan’s copy of Sushi Roll, the dice version of Sushi Go!
After playing this game I was left feeling a little indifferent. Even now the next day having slept on it I still feel that way.
The original game Sushi Go! Isn’t the heaviest of games. The follow up Sushi Go! Party could be a bit more challenging depending on the menu you chose to play.
I had a pleasant time playing the game. I didn’t hate it.
But I’m just thinking why? Why did they feel that Sushi Go! needed a dice version?
Somehow they created a game that feels lighter than the original card game! Does it play quicker? Maybe, it’s close I think.
I got why they did Party. It added more variety, different styles, level of play.
The reason for this puzzles me.
I’d play it again. But I’d rather the card versions.
Jonathan won by the way!
Our second and last game of the evening was Colin’s copy of the sci-fi space themed version (follow up?) of Survive: Escape from Atlantis, Survive: Space Attack!
I really like the original version. There are not many intentionally mean games out there. Being mean to other players is baked into the game, it’s in its DNA.
Survive: Space Attack! brings that DNA to space with a couple of twists.
The first being the laser cannons and the four tiles they go on. Being on one of those tiles allows you to shoot one of the aliens and get control of that alien! Which takes it off the board, and then at the start of a future turn allows you to place it on an empty space tile of your choosing.
Also the end game trigger of the exploding reactor tile is one of the four tiles the laser cannons are on. So Space Attack lasts a little bit longer turn wise.
Fighters, single seat space ships are the dolphins of this version with the added power of being able to shoot aliens.
This next one could be house ruled in the original game, but you get a victory point for each corner you have managed to get at least one survivor to.
There is another side to the board used for challenges. But didn’t get a chance to look into that.
I really like this series of games and you get most out of it leaning into the mean side of it, playing the wounded innocent one when some-one reciprocates and kills one of your survivors.
We had a blast playing this. Charlene didn’t get any survivors to safety. But that might have been to inconveniently placed aliens by yours truly blocking her.
Somehow through all the chaos and screwing each other over Jonathan won!
It was a fun midweek gaming session. A big thank you to Jonathan, Charlene and Colin for coming along and making it so.
Compared to the previous game there was much more conflict going on. This was mainly due to the early conflict cards giving a victory point to the winner. Something we didn’t see in the previous game. The conflict cards giving control to one of the three city spaces along with the victory point also came up, along with the later cards being worth two victory points. You really couldn’t ignore combat in this game.
I was playing the Baron for the first time. I do like the choosing two factions ability he has. It’s a hard decision to make. I chose the Spacing Guild as one of them. The thinking was once triggered it’d help me get two influence on the track and open up the second space on the shipping track.
I ended up buying mainly emperor related cards in the trade row. These were giving me card draw. I was getting turns where I was drawing two or three extra cards.
Luckily I drew an intrigue card that allowed me to buy a dreadnaught for three solari early on. This helped greatly in those all important battles at the end of the round.
My purchase of my third agent was delayed by a round when Charlene took the space I needed on the shipping track as my first turn. But that’s the point of worker placement mechanics.
I triggered the end of the game with two rounds to spare by winning a combat worth two victory points.
Final scores
Four of my victory points were from the influence track plus an alliance, I bought one with an intrigue card, plus I got one from an endgame intrigue card. The rest of my victory points came from combat.
It was a good evening gaming. I just need to try and swap shifts so I can make the next one.
It really was great to play 7 Wonders Duel again. It’s still got the magic. But like the many fantastic two player games that I own it just doesn’t get the love it deserves. Mainly because not a lot of two player gaming gets to take place.
History and the bgstat app will record that I won with a scientific victory in the third age. What it won’t show is if it had gone the distance Nathan was in a much stronger position than me to claim a points victory.
After a break it was time to introduce Nathan to an uncooperative boardgame!
Yep Portal the uncooperative cake acquisition boardgame was going to test the father son bonds!
This is a great two player game, that I really do need to try at the higher player counts.
However in this game there was a lot of incinerating each other’s cake. With the last few turns getting very tactical. It looked like I was going to win by a single slice of cake. In fact the only slice of cake that would be left on the board. However in a last desperate move Nathan managed to force a tie by incinerating his and my last pieces of cake at the same time.
Which meant the game went to the tiebreaker, and having the most test subjects on the board meant I was able to claim victory.
After a home made sweet and sour pork for tea, and some episodes of South Park it was time to visit a galaxy far, far away, and play Star Wars Outer Rim with the Unfinished Business expansion.
As the embedded Instagram picture I shared below shows the game is a bit of a table hog. Especially on Nath’s table. We’d never have got a third or even fourth player round the table.
We cherry picked the bits from Unfinished Business that we’d add to the core game. The bits that made the cut were the core worlds, and ambitions. In a two player game I didn’t see much point playing with favours.
Below you can see which characters we chose to play and the ambitions.
Jyn managed to buy a YT-1300, which had a couple of mods that gave me a critical hit in combat, plus one that meant my opponents also rolled one less die.
With out those two mods I wouldn’t have been able to take on the empire patrols to enable me to attempt my final ambition condition.
Thanks to Nathan channelling his inner Jonathan for his dice rolls, whilst he was trying to do his final ambition and failing (several times) I was able to swoop in and grab victory by completing mine. I was greatly helped by Nathan rolling for the Empire.
You’ve probably guessed I won. Ten fame points and a completed ambition board.
With a weeks holiday ahead of me I took the opportunity to visit Nathan for a couple of days.
I arrived Monday afternoon managing to avoid any of the usual traffic jam points like the M25.
The evening saw me attempting to teach Nathan how to play Brazil Imperial to very limited success.
The map I chose was an official from the publisher that I got off the bgg page for the game.
It looked an interesting two player map with the island in the middle. The chances of combat were low for this map, which I thought was perfect for a learning game. One less thing to have to absorb.
Nathan was finding it hard to follow what was going on.
I don’t think it helped with Nathan’s focus that he had consumed approximately three quarters of a bottle of 1800 tequila.
So we gave up after an hour or so of play. He wasn’t enjoying it.
There was no point playing another game so we had a film night instead watching The Batman. I’m not sure I like the look of The Riddler in the movie. But it’s a pretty solid Batman effort with a focus more on the detective side of the character. Which I like. After all he is the worlds greatest detective!
Tuesday saw Alien Fate of the Nostromo hit the table for a learning game.
I had bought this for Nathan’s birthday after he had said he regretted not getting it on his recent holiday in the US.
Wow! I love that when you open up the box you are confronted by a hissing Jonesy. It’s a lovely bit of art that does take you a little by surprise.
I played Ripley with Nathan playing Dallas.
Being brave souls we also played with Ash. Which is meant to add a further complication to the game.
I really do like the art on the player boards. It really captures the characters from the movie. The publisher could have easily gone the movie stills route. But I’m glad they didn’t. This art looks so much better.
The miniatures in the game look very nice detail wise. Just a shame they are made from a very soft plastic. Maybe a better quality would have pushed up the final cost of the game. Let’s face it, as boardgames go this is not an expensive game. There is a mass market feel to it.
It’s also a big shame that Ash isn’t also a miniature instead of the standee.
I’m not sure if we misplayed a rule or two. But this felt suspiciously easy to win. Maybe we got lucky with the mission cards we drew for the game.
It’s just weird having played other Co-ops which even on their easy settings seemed more challenging.
Of cause it could be as the designer of the game Scott Rogers said we just got real lucky. Sometimes it happens.
Our three objectives for the game and the final mission.
We had fun playing the game. I liked the basic crafting mechanic. It definitely felt like Alien. Liked the fact when you encountered the alien you take a moral hit and run away. The encounter tiles added to the suspense, and making it feel like the movie.
Later on I introduced Nathan to the flip and write Welcome to the Moon. So you know what is coming now.
The following post may or may not contain spoilers for the Welcome to the Moon campaign. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one if you plan to play the campaign and want to experience it’s twists and turns as surprises for yourself. REMEMBER you have been warned.
As I was setting up the game I noticed on the first adventures player board that there is a Dalek that looks like it might be trying to get on the rocket!
How did I not notice this before!
Nathan noticed it straight away.
What a bloody cool little easter egg to include.
The Dalek
I decided we would work our way through the campaign. So instead of reading all the text I summarised the story so far for Nathan.
We then played Adventure 1 which obviously we chose a different route to the other campaign. Once again I was the captain for our initial efforts.
This route had us remove the number 7 card from the game, plus we are able to choose the mission cards for each adventure.
Mission cards for adventure 1 (top) and adventure 2 (bottom)
Nathan won the first adventure to become the captain for adventure 2.
Just like our experiences in the other campaign play through, this second adventure caught Nathan unawares. He too had been lulled into that false sense of security and “simplicity” of the first adventure.
All of a sudden the complexity level was dialled up a few notches.
I think Nathan didn’t enjoy this adventure as much because of this.
Our twist in adventure 2 was that we could circle plants on any of the orbiting stations regardless of where we wrote the number.
Adventure 2 Chapter path taken: 148,79,106,92
Our evening was finished off with another movie night, this time we watched the Nicolas Cage move The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.
A movie in which he plays himself! Who then gets roped in by the CIA to help rescue a kidnapped girl. It’s not a bad film. The de-aging of Cage is a bit ropey. Definitely one of his better recent efforts.
