Category Archives: netrunner

netrunner

Running Tuesday

chatteris warlords, game night, netrunner, Road to regionals

So my new improved Noise deck, got owned by Jamie and his NEH deck. Not sure I was playing “pancakes” right. Once Wyldside got trashed, does “pancakes” give me an extra click? (Done a check and no it doesn't, curses!) Our next match up this week will see my NEH deck take on which ever runner Jamie is currently playing.

In the evening once more I was at the Chatteris Warlords meetup.

There was a real variety of games being played last night. 7 Wonders was being played by Jonathan's children and friends along with a couple of members of the club. Later on there was a game of Betrayal At The House On The Hill, another table a game of 7 Wonders: Duels was going (the cards were smaller than I expected, we are talking around the same size as the damage cards in X-Wing, which is a popular size, just not your normal playing card size. Yet for a small box, and cards this game requires a lot of table space).

A game of Bolt Action was going on also. I enjoy what would at best be described as war game, miniatures lite, so games like Memoir '44, X-Wing, Battlelore. The more heavy games aren't for me. I don't want to be using a tape measure to move. The nearest I get is that little movement template you get in games like X-Wing. That's my limit. Plus a game of Wings of Glory was on the go.

My gaming last night at the club was two games of Netrunner, surprise, surprise.

First up my Noise deck against Jinteki Chronos Protocol. First blood went to my opponent scoring from an unprotected server he had setup on his first turn.

That was a good bluff, I had underestimated my opponent. I didn't think they would install an unprotected agenda.

After that I started scoring. My opponent was getting easier to read where he had installed agendas. With Faust and David out, parasite in my grip, incubator breeding nicely, the odds were in my favour. Archives had been left unprotected which I was able to use to great effect. Sadly all my runs on HQ were unproductive. But my runs on R&D and the remote servers were good feeding grounds. DDOS did its job nicely, and having two Same Old Things installed helped my recycle the Levy and I've Had Worse To great effect.

Round two saw my NEH deck up against Kate. Within two turns I had a Traffic Accident in my hand. I just needed to start landing some tags. I was iced up, set some traps that could be advanced. Although my opponent managed to avoid one with a Infiltration. The one he did trigger I was one advancement token short of the desired effect I wanted.

With City Surveillance installed the drip drip drain of the runners credits started, it was that or take a tag. Once I landed a tag (which I think I did with a ghost branch) that was it, the gateway was open. Our agenda scoring was back and fourth, we were pretty even. The Franchise City hit like a dream when the runner scored an agenda.

I scored a Chronos Project too early for my liking, but still took out some cards from the runners heap from the game.

I had hidden an agenda in archives, well I had to, there was no other option. My archives was unprotected, and there was no way I was going to ice it up to protect it. That would have been like putting a great big sign up saying “hey look at me, something valuable is here”.

The runner did a run on my City Surveillance, and trashed it. Which was nice because that was a costly run for them and left them short of credits. How did I follow that up on my turn? I installed another City Surveillance!!

Agenda wise we were even, the runner decided to stop avoiding tags, and got upto four tags. I checked how many cards they had in hand. Then I drew a Scorched Earth. Click one, played Traffic Accident, two meat damage. Click two, played Scorched Earth, four meat damage, for the kill and the win.

I was happier with the way this NEH deck had worked. It's still not there. But it needs more play now.

Tuesday I'm calling the start of my Road to Regionals. These are the two decks I'm going to be taking. They need more work, especially NEH, although I'm a lot happier with Noise at the moment.

Just in week starting 8/2/16

lego minifigs, netrunner, new arrivals

The latest Netrunner data pack Kala Ghoda landed through the letter box this week. Kala Ghoda is the first data pack in the Mumbad Cycle. A second pack of sleeves for Netrunner was also ordered to give me enough sleeves to use of that design.

Munchkin Gloom in its rediculous over sized box was picked up for a bargain price off the Facebook Trading and Selling Group.

Continuing my DVD trip down memory lane the 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men dropped through the letter box. This series is the inspiration behind the movie The Rocketeer. Which captured the whole feel, look really well.

Formula D is really getting under my skin. I love the game. Like Harbour I wanted something to use as a social media boast about winning. Hence the arrival of this little racing driver minifig.

Below are the extra sleeves I bought to sleeve my corporate deck. It was a little annoying and embarrassing to start sleeving the deck Tuesday before play only to discover I didn't have enough sleeves. Which forced me to play unsleeved.

I have to admit the FFG official Netrunner sleeves they produce like the four (I think it's four) official playmats look amazing. I just wish FFG produced a high quality Netrunner storage solution as WoTC do for MTG in the form of the gift boxes.

 

OMG what have I done?

netrunner, pandemic

I've only gone and signed up for the 2016 Regionals taking place on the Friday at the UK Games Expo.

Last year this event was the Nationals, but FFG partnering up with Esdevium a sister company in the Asmodee Borg stable are hosting the Nationals latter in the year now at a separate event.

Talk about jumping in at the deep end.

I've not even played in a store comp yet! But that will be changing soon thanks to the just starting meta in Chatteris, and my FLGS there The Hobbit Hole having the spring store kit on order.

Even with this regular venue to play games, I'm still a noob at the game.

So I'm expecting to just be cannon fodder for the much more experienced players, and proving just how strong I am propping the whole of the rest of the other players up from the bottom.

However this does give me a focus.

I also entered the Pandemic Survival Regional. This is happening on the Saturday. I'm hoping after reading this sentence that one or two of my fellow Fenland Gamers who are also going to the Expo will take the big hint and also sign up.

“Pandemic Survival is an “extreme” version of Pandemic where 6 to 12 teams of 2 will face each other in an epic battle to save the world. Their goal: to be the first team to find all four cures, or to be the last team still alive at the end of the game.” (Taken from the link below)

Sounds exciting doesn't it?

The Pandemic Survival Nationals takes place the next day. I'm assuming this is going to be like a grand play off of the top twelve players from the previous day.

This is definitely an event that all Pandemic fans should experience I think (this is my first chance to take part in one). Take a look at this Z-Man page for a description of what the competition will involve.

There is a Lords of Waterdeep competition as well but I want some time to “chill” and buy games at the Expo.

So at least you know where to find me on the Friday and Saturday at the Expo.

 

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

 

Custom Game Cards

Ashes, imperial assault, netrunner

So yesterday I remembered that some dude over on the Ashes Facebook group had created a card that was double sided to be used in keeping track which pile of dice was which. And I thought that this would be a handy thing to get printed. I should track the file down and find a place to custom print the card for me.

Luckily bgg is the place to go to find files related to a game like the rules, faq, translations of rules etc. It was on the Ashes bgg files section that I found the Ashes Dice Pool Cards file I was after.

Even luckier the creator of the file had approached Plaid Hat Games, gotten permission to link to the designs on a custom card printing site so that folks could just click, order and get the cards.

The site the guy was using was DriveThruCards.

site-logo-redesignd

At $0.09 a card these were incredibly cheap. So I ordered twenty to make the order worth while and to hand out to other players of the game when I come across them. Or to use as prizes in a store event if I can get one going. You can get the Ashes Card Pool card HERE.

Roll on this morning, and an email about Boss Monster hits my inbox, reminding me of the Create Your Own Card app they had developed. Guess where this app is being hosted? Yep DriveThruCards, so you can design your own card for Boss Monster and then get it printed!

It gets even better!!!! There is a Lost Levels expansion you can buy, plus copies of some errata’d cards that are as far as I can tell officially produced.

Screen Shot 2016-02-08 at 11.36.57

And look at those prices! so yes they are also on the way to me.

But this got me thinking. If the people behind Boss Monster can produce errata’d cards like this, why can’t the likes of FFG also offer this service? I mean we have cards in Imperial Assault that over Christmas got errata’d to balance out the game. We also got the same with some cards in Netrunner in the form of the Most Wanted List and Wireless Pavilion.

Surely FFG could put up the images for people to get printed off if they wanted the corrected card? I see very little overhead here for them on this. They must have corrected cards ready to go in future printings.

At the moment there is no work around that doesn’t rely on carrying lots of bits of extra paper around, writing on the cards themselves with a Sharpie, or stickers.

Would either of the last two then make the cards altered illegal to use in tournaments? They would have been altered.

Maybe one day all companies will be enlightened as the Boss Monster folks on this sort of thing.

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?

 

 

Kick that hornets nest

expansions, imperial assault, netrunner, news, star wars

 

With the arrival of the latest additions to the Star Wars Imperial Assault universe, I thought I'd better finally do the posts for the previous additions. So over the next few days I'll be doing posts looking at those expansions plus the new arrivals.

In the meantime before those posts start taking over this blog, I'd briefly point out that FFG over the holiday period decided they would “tweak” one or two of their games. The two I currently care about are naturally Imperial Assault and Android:Netrunner. X-Wing as a collectable game for me is on hold.

Imperial Assault got off lightly I think with the “tweaks”. The Royal Guard, Rebel Saboteurs, and Imperial Officers have had some of their card text changed. Below I have extracted the changes from the FAQ.

Naturally for the new season of store championships FFG have updated the legal skirmish maps. The legal maps are, the Kuat Space Station, Mos Eisley Cantina and the Training Ground map.

Here is the link to the new FAQ, here is the link to the FFG explanation for changes , new tournament rules

Let's look at the Netrunner changes, or as I like to describe it “kicking the hornets nest”. These changes have been the more controversial from my observations of the two Facebook communities for both games I follow.

So what has caused the hornets in the Netrunner community to swarm? Let's take a look at the FAQ for the two changes:

Here is the kick that stirred folks up.

Link to the new FAQ , link to new Tournament Rules , FFG explain why

My Thoughts on the subject…

FFG spent a lot of time analysing the recent world championships they held, I think they also monitor the meta in other ways too. So they have a very accurate image of the current state of the game. More so than us players.

Which means that they won't have reached the decisions they have on a whim. They will have thought about them, play tested them, and made a decision that would have the least impact on the game to fix the “problem” as they see it based on the data they have.

One of the things I don't like about Magic, Pokemon etc is the banned cards list. I think this is a sloppy, annoying fix. So I'm glad to see the solution that FFG have come up with. At least with the FFG solution I can still play with the cards, I just have to make a compromise or two to my deck to use them.

What I would like to see is a more elegant way of doing the errata for the cards. I'd love to see some stickers made available cheaply to purchase to update the cards with from FFG. I'd also like to think all new printings of these cards are with these changes. Or even better still I'd love to be able to buy corrected cards to replace the existing ones with.

FFG think/hope that these changes will add variety to the meta for the games. That it will encourage players to build a wider variety of decks/teams, which they will see reflected in tournaments.

I've been playing Netrunner for nearly a year now, but from what I can tell certain deck types come and go out of fashion as new data packs/expansions come out. At one point a Weyland deck may have the upper hand, while Criminal decks maybe stronger on the runner side. Then the next Deluxe expansion NBN becomes more popular.

If these changes even that out, I'm happy with what's been done.

 

Boxing Day Butt Kicked

netrunner, online play, star realms
Yesterday I taught Nath how to play Netrunner. We used the core set. Nath played my favourite runner, the anarch Noise. While I played the corp NBN.
This was the first time I've taught the game to anyone, and I was a little nervous about it considering I'm such a noob myself.
While explaining the game to Nath there was little bits I didn't explain, for example the influence cost of cards. That isn't important unless you are building decks. I also used a six sided dice for Nath to track his mmu with. Plus I didn't cover mulligans either. Well for a first game, how would Nath know if he needed to mulligan or not?

Nath drew a medium early, while I was drawing agendas and no ice! Although with two pad campaigns in play my economy was good. Nath hit HQ, scored an agenda for two points. I replied by scoring a one point agenda. Then he hit R&D which I was unable to defend and built up that medium. Nath scores another agenda for two more points on one of his R&D raids. I'm still not hitting ice, and have three agendas in HQ. Then Nath hits a winning three point agenda on a run on R&D that saw him accessing six cards.

Between our game of Magic and this game of Netrunner I'm not having much luck against Nath. I'm doing much better against him playing Star Realms. Since Nath has joined the online play via the app I've been kicking his butt. Which is funny because since Rich started playing online he's been kicking my butt!

 

Star Wars Lego Advent Day 1

lego minifigs, netrunner, new arrivals

Yep today I can start opening the Star Wars Lego Advent Calandar. After keeping it safe round my Nans for a few weeks now (I would have opened them all by now if I hadn't) it is now TIME!

So today's little bit of Star Wars inspired Lego is a mini Jabba's Barge from the sixth Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi. It's amazing what can be done with eleven bits of Lego.
Finally the click trackers from Team Covenent arrived today. I do like these for tracking clicks while playing Android Netrunner.

These are really nice, I also like their money counters for the game. I'll get some at some point, oh along with the extra click tokens.

The invoice came in a really nice card, and had a Team Covenent sticker inside too. Back of the invoice had really nice gushing text on it thanking for buying etc etc. This was a real great way to present the invoice, it is very stylish, and clever. A very very nice touch.