Category Archives: new arrivals

new arrivals

Ook!

new arrivals

I recently bought a second hand out of print (never to be back in print) copy of the James Wallis board game The Witches.

The Witches is based on the Terry Pratchett books set in the Discworld universe and specifically the books that cover The Witches.

I knew getting this game would lead to further expense. But more of that later in the post.

First I want to talk about my relationship with the Discworld books.

I first started reading the words of Terry Pratchett way back in 1986, maybe 1987 with the his very first book in what can only be described as one of the all time classic fantasy series, The Colour of Magic.

The book was hilarious. We got introduced to Rincewind, a “failed” wizard who only knew a single spell, Twoflower the first ever tourist, the luggage made from sapian wood that followed its owner everywhere.

And then there was the Discworld itself. A giant disc supported by four giant elephants, riding through space on the back of a giant turtle. Taking flat earth theories to their logical conclusion if you ask me.

The Colour of Magic it would be fair to say was wonderful, funny, used fantasy tropes and was influenced by D&D (well roleplaying games). Perfect for a geek like me.

Then the Light Fantastic the follow up book continued the adventures of Rincewind and Twoflower. It too was a delight to read.

Since that introduction to the Discworld buying each new book in the series when published was a must buy and read straight away.

I even got to go to two or three book signings and briefly meet Pratchett as he signed the hard cover copy of whichever Discworld book he was promoting. If memory doesn’t fail me there was a signing while I was studying in Brighton. Followed by a couple at Waterstones in Guildford while was living there. One of the Guildford signings was for Good Omens and had a surprise for me when I went. Because there with Pratchett was Gaiman. Which at the time for a fan of the Sandman comics pretty exciting and cool.

So being a Pratchett and Discworld fan, having bought The Witches. I knew that some point in the future I would want to try and get Discworld Ankh-Morpork.

Discworld Ankh-Morpork like The Witches is also out of print, never to be printed again. However it has been reskinned and renamed as Nanty Narking, and set in Victorian London. Fun fact I’ve backed it on Gamefound to get the game and the new Cthulhu expansion.

However a couple of weeks of getting The Witches an opportunity arose to get a copy of Discworld Ankh-Morpork for a reasonable price. Well reasonable in relation to what the game tends to go for. Definitely towards the lower end of the price range. But still not cheap.

Now with both games in my collection I need to get the cards sleeved before I get them to the table. Because like my other expensive out of print games (Battle Star Galactica, StarCraft, to name a couple) before they hit the table they need protecting.

New Arrivals for January 2025

new arrivals

I do like a good trick taking game.

I can trace that fondness to playing knockout whist with my dad’s aunt Joan as a teenager.

So it should come as no surprise that once I heard about the game Rebel Princess from a video that I would order a copy.

Not only did I order the deluxe version, but I also ordered the promo princess card for it.

That deluxe copy of Rebel Princess arrived last week.

So I’m waiting to get it to the table which will hopefully be this coming club night.

Thanks to a Facebook ad for an online retailer I have used in the past I ended up caving in and ordering my third version of Sushi Go.

This version is the 10th Anniversary Bento Box edition.

There are only 10000 copies of this particular version. After ordering I regretted I didn’t order a second, even third copy. Which I could then later on sell for an inflated price on eBay. But then I thought that’s just not me. I don’t want to exploit another person for personal gain.

Anyway my copy is due any day now. Once it arrives I’ll share on social media what number my copy is.

I did get the Heroscape Battle for Wellspring Battle Box as well earlier in the month too. I’m slowly building up from the Age of Annihilation Master Set and Lands of Valhalla Terrain Expansion.

I’ve still got to get this to the table. But I know I’ll like it having played the failed MtG spinoff years ago.

One that arrived this month and shockingly has been played to is Lure and its expansion Deep Waters.

Well that’s it for this month so far. Finspan is taking orders tomorrow and you know that it will be on its way to me.

Also there is a remote chance Tiny Epic A Game of Thrones might turn up. By remote I mean slim to not happening at all. It’s meant to have been posted from China (and I’ll rant about this once it finally arrives). So who knows when it will turn up.

And now the awkward end of the post. One day I’ll work out how to finish a post.

Martians for a night

first look, game night, new arrivals

It’s hard to remember when I backed something on Kickstarter without logging in and checking.

But I think it was the later half of last year that I backed the Kickstarter for Terraforming Mars the Dice Game.

I’d been tempted by the lure of a lighter version of the game that used dice. Who doesn’t love a game with dice? The Rahdo thoughts on it sold the game to me. My previous experiences with dice versions of board games (such as Roll for the Galaxy, Biblios the Dice Game, and Nations the Dice Game to name a handful in my collection) had also been good. Even when I hadn’t played the original version.

But that’s not the case when it comes to Terraforming Mars the Dice Game. I had at least played the original once before when it first came out.

If my memory isn’t playing tricks on me Chris, Jonathan, and myself played Chris’s copy during the initial hype that surrounded the game. And boy was it one of the hot games when it was released along side Great Western Trails. Everyone was talking about it. Supply was not able to keep up with demand for sure.

I did enjoy it. But not enough to add it to my collection. It was a fun engine builder that rewarded multiple plays, and knowing what the cards were. A noob playing for the first time against a more experienced player would definitely be thrashed.

I definitely hadn’t played any of the numerous expansions for the game. And despite owning the iOS app version of the game I’ve never actually got round to playing that either.

So why did I back the dice version again?

I wanted that lighter more accessible Terraforming Mars experience. Something that I was more likely to get to the table.

I should be better at keeping my pulse on what each of the Kickstarter projects I’ve backed are doing. I knew that Terraforming Mars the Dice Game was shipping in certain areas. But hadn’t twigged that it had started being sent out in the UK and EU. I was a week late to the party on that fact.

So at the start of the week I was hoping there might be a chance the game might be in my grubby mitts by Friday. But as the days passed it was looking more and more unlikely. Until I got the notice DPD were picking up from the shipping company yesterday. Even with that news I wasn’t convinced it’d be with me in time. I was thinking more realistically I’d get the game Saturday.

However I was very pleasantly surprised to get the DPD message to say the game would be delivered this morning. Phew the game session plan had been saved.

As the comment on the Instagram post shows I was very pleasantly surprised when I opened the packaging. Inside was not only the Kickstarter edition of the game (it has the promo cards) but also card sleeves and the playmat.

I really don’t remember adding them in the pledge manager. But I must have.

Naturally before leaving home to play the game I did sleeve all the cards. I had them.

This evening Ben, Harrison, Dave, and myself travelled across space to transform the red planet.

Before the others arrived I did set things up ready to teach and play. So I shuffled the decks, drew the randomly chosen awards and milestones from a dice bag, drew eight bonus cards, and obviously chose a side of the playmat to use.

Despite none of us having played the game before we had the corporate era expansion added in plus the promo cards. Or all in as it’s known.

I had the Interplanetary Cinematics as my corporation.

Watch as I live blog this post as WordPress lost everything I wrote below this point, and I now get the joy of rewriting it.

The bgstat chose me as the first player which meant Dave got an extra resource at my expense.

Although my corporation gave me lots of wild resources to start with, and an on going cost reduction (helps if you remember that part). When it came to doing a production action it was a lot weaker than the other corporations.

My actual production engine to get me dice and the necessary resources to play cards was pretty weak compared to the others. It only ever got me three dice.

My main incentive for doing the production action was to reset my cards with actions on, and refilling my hand. Almost the opposite to the others who were getting many more dice than me when doing production.

I was kinda forced into exploring other ways of getting more dice such as action cards or even instants.

Over three fifths of my points came from having focused on end game scoring. I won two of the three awards, got two of the three milestones. Plus the majority of the instants I played also gave me points. I really did out perform the others in these areas.

One reason for this I think was because they were resource aka dice rich and focused less on these areas.

It might also have helped that one milestone fitted in with the way I was building an end game points engine! And the second milestone was one of opportunity that I could grab it before the others got close.

I loved the bonus cards. Like Scythe and it’s factory cards the choice which to go with is hard because they are all good and it’s hard to decide.

Being able to cycle cards quickly looking for ones you want is a great mechanic.

This is a very easy game to teach. Which is what you want for this weight of game. The iconography is also quick to pick up. Not overly overwhelming like say Guilds of London.

I think there is a fair bit of variety in set up, corporations, bonuses etc that replay ability will be pretty good.

For me the evening was a double win. A victory at the table and time with my friends.

Oh and really happy I backed this. This is TM for me.

A pleasant surprise

Dragonbane, LCG, Lord of the Rings, LoTR, new arrivals, RPG

This morning I got an unexpected delivery. I had zero knowledge about it. So I was curious to find out what was in the box.

Back at the start of the year during the whole WotC OGL fiasco Free League were taking post Kickstarter preorders on their Dragonbane box set.

Feeling a bit miffed at WotC at the time I took a look at it and decided to throw my money in its direction. And then promptly forgot about it.

Then around April time Free League sent a remind to people on their mailing list announcing the closing of preorders. I couldn’t remember if I’d preordered or not. I couldn’t find an email confirmation and there was no response from Free League when I contacted them to see if I had.

So I assumed I had not gone through with the preorder for whatever reason at the time. And thought nothing more of it.

Jump forward to UKGE. Before the show I had a plan to pick up some of the Free League bits I wanted like stuff for Vaesen, The One Ring, and Twilight 2000. And yes Dragonbane if it was there was on the list.

But the Amen-Re deluxe edition, and the luxury poker chips killed off that plan.

So I was very pleasantly surprised when I opened the package this morning to find a copy of Dragonbane inside.

It more than holds up to the high standard of the other box sets that Free League puts out.

You can get a free QuickStart on DriveThruRPG.

Tomorrow will see the arrival hopefully of a new living card game I’ve decided to get into to. No I hear you I don’t play Marvel Champions regularly enough. So why am I getting into another?

The whole LoTR MtG set, and the War of the Ring the card game got me yearning more LoTR.

So I investigated the LoTR card game by FFG. I knew there had been a revised edition released a couple years back. Which meant you didn’t need two core sets to play up to four players. Plus they were reprinting sets under the new model of a character box and a campaign box. Plus some of the more harder to get and out of print sets were getting this treatment.

So I caved and ordered the new revised core set, two of the four starter sets (dwarf and elf), plus the mission pack.

That should be enough to get Nathan and me started.

Who knows I might find the odd player at home too.

It’s been a busy week

D&D, life, the universe, and everything, new arrivals, RPG, still alive

It’s been a busy and tiring week at work. Which has left me too tired to try and arrange any midweek gaming.

My attempt to get some gaming in last night failed. No one was free or interested in playing some roll and writes. And I had to turn down an invite to learn Marrakesh as it would have meant finishing too late.

So it looks like June is on course for being a slow month of gaming, and I don’t have a car issue as an excuse this time.

Work wise I’ve stepped up the job search as the clock counts down to the end of my temp contract. Apparently there is a full time contract, they are timetabling as if I’m there next year. However I’ve not seen anything yet to sign.

At the start of the week the latest promo packs and solo mode for Rolling Realms arrived. It’s getting to the point now that an alternate storage solution needs to be found for the game. I think with the Encounters promo pack that comes out at the same time as when the game does that’s it. The limit for everything in the original game box has been reached.

So yesterday out of the blue my pre-order of Tome of Beasts 3 by Kobold Press arrived.

I am a big fan of the Kobold press pocket editions of their books. I love the format. It’s so handy. Goes nicely in a bag to read on public transport or in bed. I just love it compared to the larger books like the Monster Manual.

I currently have two other of their creature books, Tome of Beasts 2, and Creature Codex. With the updated Tome of Beasts pre-ordered (out next month if memory doesn’t fail me).

For me I actually prefer these Kobold Press offerings to the official WotC equivalents. They feel fresh and fire the imagination more. The art is amazing. Which helps fire that imagination.

There is also the benefit that unless your players also have purchased the books that they are unlikely to have come across the creatures in them. So when they encounter one it’s a surprise and refreshing to them also.

I’m looking forward to flicking through the pages of this latest volume and seeing what grabs me.

Life, the universe, and not a dungeon23 post!

life, the universe, and everything, new arrivals, still alive

It’s been a day or two since I last posted. Several days since I posted something not #dungeon23 related.

Believe it or not I have other stuff going on in my life.

Sadly that seems to be work.

This year I’m not able to make the majority of the Fenland Gamers holiday gaming sessions.

Currently the only one I can make is the night before I do a whistle stop trip to see Nathan.

The lack of getting round a table with friends and playing games is a drawback of the new job role I took on in the later part of this year.

Don’t get me wrong I love what I’m doing. I’m working with some great people.

But there is a price all this comes at.

I do have some new arrivals though.

New arrivals

First up is the second expansion for Dune Imperium, Immortality.

I don’t think anyone will be surprised at this one considering I love playing Dune Imperium (especially with the first expansion Rise of Ix).

Just like Istanbul, Dune Imperium just gets better with each expansion added in. So I’m pretty excited to get this back to the table

The next two arrivals just show you how much I liked these games after playing them recently.

First up is Splendor Duel. Yeah I know two player games hardly get to the table, and attempts to get a two player game evening arranged have fallen flat. Add in the fact I’ve not won a game of Splendor in a long time. But despite this I still enjoyed the game and wanted it in the collection. Splendor Duel will be making the journey with me for that whistle stop trip to see Nathan.

Next up is Trekking Through History. I played this recently with Ben and Diego and had a good time playing it. I loved the stories of your time travels you could make up with the card titles. I also think this might play well as a two player game with Nathan.

Finally the latest Vampire the Masquerade Rivals expansion The Dragon and The Rogue arrived.

It’s been out for a while in the US, and only now starting to get in the hands on UK and maybe EU folks.

I love the game. But like many before (Ashes, Star Wars Destiny, Dice Masters etc) supply issues are just killing the game for me.

Well that’s it for now. I’ve a busy few days ahead of me. As they say no rest for the wicked and those that work in retail.

An Artisan Game Arrives Along With Some D&D Books

D&D, new arrivals

Yesterday I got mail.

Today I get to share with you what that mail was.

I bet you are dying to know.

First up my friend Byron designed and created a boardgame called Rock Hunters.

Byron very generously sent my a copy of the game to play.

I will be writing about that experience in a future post. But in the meantime look at the amazing job Byron did producing the game.

The other thing to arrive yesterday was the new D&D adventure by WotC Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen.

At the weekend a copy of the Dragonlance Campaign Setting for D&D 3.5 arrived. But I was waiting until now to mention it.

And guess what I’ll be writing about these also in another post!

So what’s the point of this post? Well it’s a “hey look what I got” type post, and a nice change I thought from my occasional “look I’m still alive” type post after I haven’t posted for a day or two.

See you in the next post on here.

Two New Copies of Classic D&D Adventures Arrive

D&D, DM/GM Tips, new arrivals, RPG

If you have been watching Matt Colville’s Running the Game YouTube videos for anytime you will have seen episode 7 – Your Town (video embedded further down in the post).

In the video he talks about using a town from an existing adventure like Phandalin in the Lost Mines of Phandelver.

Matt Colville – Running the Game episode 7 – Your Town

He then goes on to talk about the three he uses, Hommlet, Orlane, and Milborne from classic D&D adventures.

Now if you have been playing D&D for a very long time you may own the adventures these towns appear in.

However if you don’t (like me) you could go to eBay and pay eBay prices for original copies.

Or you can look on DriveThruRPG get a good quality scan as a pdf for less than £5, and/or (if an option) get a physical copy at a very reasonable price. Which will definitely be cheaper than the eBay prices.

I finally got round to adding copies of The Village of Hommlet, and Against the Cult of the Reptile God, to add Hommlet and Orlane as resources to use.

DriveThruRPG do a good job printing, the copies are stapled together magazine style. Being print on demand the turn around is pretty quick too. These took about a week.

I’m a big fan of the repurposing of existing adventures to save work in my own campaign.

I’ve used maps from Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and Lost Mines of Phandelver in my current campaign.

These two classics join others I have in my “library” of classics to call upon.

There is a copy of the dungeon map from the Keep on the Borderlands in my DM folder incase I need an unplanned dungeon during a session (read here for why).

The Mastering Dungeons podcast did a series of episodes on updating old adventures to 5e. They (along with Seth Skorkowsky) have looked at the Isle of Dread, which I have as the heavy Goodman Press printing, and a copy of the original.

Sadly I’ve had to settle for just the pdf for the classic adventure Pharaoh! It be cool to get a physical copy but not at eBay prices. But it’s more the maps I was interested in. At least with the pdf I can print these out.

It’s worth listening to the Mastering Dungeons series as it will give you ideas for updating old adventures for use in your own campaign, or you might think that sounds cool I’ll get it for the maps.

Old adventures are a great resource to raid for ideas, maps, even adventures to run. Yeah they might require a bit of work to use in 5e, but I think they are worth it.

I join the Stonemaier Signed Card Club

new arrivals

This morning I joined the Jamey Stegmaier signature club with the arrival of the latest Rolling Realms promo packs.

Admitting this will open me up to much ridicule at this Fridays club night. But I’m looking forward to the banter between friends.

Sadly the card I got wasn’t a Scythe card, for the obvious reason. But it was a Viticulture card which is also a favourite game.

I should point out that when you put a signed card in your basket on the Stonemaier online shop you have no control over the card you get. It is a random signed card from one of his games that gets sent to you.

So if you want a specific signed game card then you need to rely on luck and any specific deity you believe in to hopefully get a signed card from that game.

It almost has that MtG pack opening feel when you look to see what rare you got, and if it’s full art or foiled when you get your signed card.

I can see it being just as addictive as you hunt that specific game card.

In an ideal world Jamey would be at a UKGE so I can get my copy of Scythe signed. In the meantime I’ll settle for the hunt for a signed Scythe encounter card.

Included with the Rolling Realms promo packs was a free copy of Jamey’s latest game (designed specifically to celebrate Stonemaier Games tenth anniversary) Smitten.

Smitten is a ten minute playtime co-op micro game for two players.

I’m looking forward to getting it to the table. Until then it joins the other 56 games left to play in my unplayed owned games challenge.

But wait I’ve not even mentioned the new Rolling Realms promo packs yet!

There are three previous Rolling Realms promo packs released, Terra Mystica, Libertalia, and Rolling Realms.

Which are now joined by promo packs for the following games Smitten, A Feast for Odin, and Honey Buzz.

The latest three are unusual in that they were released all at the same time. Whilst the previous ones were released by themselves.

Doing it the current way means that we save on postage when just ordering them. Previously when it was a single promo pack it was hard to justify only ordering the promo pack. Although obviously I did!

With the latest promo packs added to Rolling Realms (assuming you have the previous ones to) the number of realms you are choosing from goes from the core eleven to seventeen. And that will only grow as more promo packs are released.

It’s almost like Rolling Realms is a living roll and write.

At some point I’d like to see Stonemaier do a promo pack that adds new cards to the solo mode that make use of the promo pack realms. At the moment I think Hole 18 is the only one that could use the promo realms instead of core game cards.

Well that’s it for this post, I’ll just add once again happy tenth anniversary to Jamey and all those at Stonemaier Games. Thanks for all the fun times.

BTS and new stuff!

Alien, new arrivals, RPG

Before I go into the rest of the post a little peak behind the curtain of running this blog.

About seven weeks ago the jetpack plugin for WordPress (the software used to run this blog) stopped working.

I had no clue why.

At the time I didn’t have the time to investigate why, so I just deactivated it.

Which meant I wasn’t getting any stats for the blog, no social media sharing etc. Basically I had no idea if anyone was reading my ramblings. Wait let me correct that. I had no idea how few people were reading my poorly put together thoughts.

About three weeks ago I finally got round to trying to sort out the issue.

It’s been a tiring bouncing between initially WordPress support, then the jetpack support and my hosting provider bluehost.

The jetpack support also involved the development team, who would ask for something to be checked, or changed on the server. That would then require me to contact the bluehost support.

There were a couple of permission issues. But finally yesterday a bluehost support person ran a repair on the WordPress database and all of a sudden the jetpack plugin was alive once more.

So long story short, something technically wasn’t working, now it is!

Just dropped through the letterbox is the latest Alien RPG cinematic expansion Heart of Darkness. The third and final part of a three part series called the Draconis Strain Saga (Chariot of the Gods, and Destroyer of Worlds being the other two parts). Although it can also be played as a stand alone cinematic adventure.

You do need either the core rulebook or the starter set rules to play.

I haven’t had a chance to play the RPG, but I’m hoping to rectify that soon. In the meantime I might just look at the three expansions as a whole and give my impression of the adventures, contents, etc.

Imminent arrivals

Finally nearly a year later Renegade will any day now be sending out the promised “We’re sorry” promo packs for the missing promo card that was meant to be sent out with orders last September or October last year.

Also due anytime now is the replacement dice for The One Ring second edition plus the hard copy of The Ruins of the Lost Realm.

Then by the end of this week the preorder of Twilight Inscription should arrive. I’m looking forward to playing this roll and write.