Category Archives: new arrivals

new arrivals

New Arrival Thursday

new arrivals, tabletop
Sometimes patience is a virtue. In this instance a very big virtue. The contents of the box below were ordered over two months ago. I say ordered, technically they were pre-orders.
 
Me being a cheapskate, I opted to have the three shipped together. Which at the time I didn't think was going to delay the order this long. Initially they were all due out the same month, so my calculations had them being in my grubby mitts by the end of the month I ordered them.
However that wasn't to be the case, delays happen etc for various reasons.
Anyway at the start of the week the final piece of the jigsaw that was my pre-order arrived.
So what was in this Pandora's box?
Already plans are afoot to get a group together from interested parties to play through my game of the year prediction Pandemic Legacy.
While I'm hoping to get Dice City to the table this weekend. The Roll for the Galaxy Ambition expansion who knows, maybe Christmas with Nath?
So many great games, so little time…

 

Lego Therapy Time

lego minifigs, new arrivals

Ironman vs Ultron (set 76029)

Double the value of a five pound Tesco voucher using their promotion, add two more coin of the realm, and you end up with this nice little Marvel Lego set.

Santas Visit (set 40125)

I'm not a Christmas person, so why get this set? Well the header image for this blog is going to change, and have a seasonal theme to it. I've just got to get the motivation up to take the photos and edit them into the header.

I do like making Lego, it is very therapeutic. I really must get on with painting those Stormtroopers for Imperial Assault. That too I found to be like building Lego very therapeutic. But it's back to the motivation, or lack of it. Oh the catch twenty two of it all.

Magic Potions, Bounty Hunters and Time Machines

lego minifigs, new arrivals, promo

A new minifig arrived today, it's the uber cool looking Bobba Fett.

You have to be so careful when buying off eBay, there are a lot of keychain figures that are being sold on there that I don't like. Firstly the figures are not proper minifigs, their bodies are all one, meaning they don't come apart. Secondly the heads have holes in them where the keychain was.

These differences may not make a difference to you, however for me they are massive, and a deal breaker.

Sadly eBay is swamped by these bogus figures, and it does take time to filter out the wheat from the chaff. Which basically means reading the product descriptions carefully. But the effort is worth it.

From the promos I saw online from Essen this year, I think the coolest was for I game I didn't have, nor at that point played Colt Express. The promo they were giving away for this game was a Delorean car from the classic trilogy of movies Back to the Future.
The Delorean is cool. But the envelop had an even bigger cool factor for me. I love Asterix the Gaul. As a kid I saw the original animated movie at the cinema in St Albans when I was visiting my aunt and uncle who were living there at the time.
At secondary school there was a book club, where you could order books from a little colour leaflet that came round, so I ordered the only Asterix book they had which was the Twelve Tasks of Asterix. Up to this point I never knew there were Asterix books. It wasn't until I was at Brighton Poly that I bought anymore Asterix books to read.
Brighton was a costly revelation for me. Wisbech isn't the most cosmopolitan of towns. The local WH Smiths was and is still the main bookshop in town (although there have been others from time to time that never stayed in business for long). So moving to a town as big as Brighton, that not only had bookshops, but comic shops too, I was in geek heaven.
And it was here that I was able to find and buy more Asterix books. I also had a very good friend called Chris that was also into Asterix (and Rocky Horror) who enlightened me to the existence of all the books in the first place.
So yes when I saw the stamp below I was like blown away. That is such an amazingly epic stamp. You can bet I'm going to be keeping that stamp.

 

Mid Nov Arrivals

expansions, new arrivals

If you are one of those people bored with life and know me on other social media outlets, you will already be aware of these arrivals (I post to Instagram which pushes stuff to other places also, boring people in lots of places). However for those of you that pretend they have a life, your denial is holding you back from your recovery.

First up is the arrival of the main expansion for The Manhattan Project, The Manhattan Project Second Stage. This is several modules in one box that you can pick and choose which ones you want to add to the base game. Plus there are some nice player aid cards, which thinking about it really should have been in the base game.
Considering I'll be playing the game Wednesday, the arrival of this expansion is timely. If the only to use the extra Nations cards, and player aid cards.
Ok I'm not the worlds biggest Trek fan, I'm a bigger Star Wars and Tolkien fan. However after seeing this on Tabletop a couple years back (Tabletop effect anyone?) I did think about getting this version of Catan, but it was out of print at that point, and I didn't want it enough to really hunt it down.
And then over on that UK Facebook group for trading and selling this guy put it up for sale last week. The price seemed reasonable, so we conducted an exchange of coin of the realm for cardboard and plastic.
When the game arrived and I opened it, this was a better bargain than I thought. It also came with the Federation Space Map expansion, the only expansion for the game. So I was rather chuffed (that's a word for happy for my colonial readers in the Americas).
I've not played Catan with Nath, and this themed version of the game will be an easier sell to him. Once more the list of games to take for Christmas is growing exponentially.

Finally a Kickstarter arrived today. This one is the card game Best Treehouse Ever. If the title doesn't tell you what the theme and aim of the game is, then I guess if you saw the movie Snakes on a Plane it came as a complete surprise that there were snakes and a plane in it.

 

Let them eat rock

game night, new arrivals

The Tabletop Effect – Tabletop a popular internet based to show about playing boardgames. Hosted by Wil Wheaton, where each episode he plays a boardgame with a group of celebrity chums. The Tabletop effect describes the phenomenon of a game featured on the show selling out very quickly as fans of the show rush out to purchase the game featured in the just aired episode, making the game hard to find for purchase.

I have in previous posts hinted at this effect when I've talked about when I first purchased Marvel Legendary. To be totally honest I have given in to this effect/hype myself. However I have managed to resist the effect. Yes I know shocking.

After watching the episode where Wil and friends played Stone Age, it looked interesting, and I nearly did buy it. But for whatever reason never did, and it hasn't even made my wish list on bgg.

So I was rather glad to get the chance to at least play the game last night with Jonathan and Mat.

Just before we started to play Stone Age, Jonathon said he wasn't going to take it easy on Mat and myself, and play to win!

During our game, Mat had to resort to feeding his workers with brick/stone to make up his short fall in food. Which kickstarted some capitalist/Tory banter with Mat, that resulted with Mat being renamed Tory Mat for the duration of the evening.

Jonathan walked away with a massive victory, while Mat took a respectable second place, while I dragged the score curve down by not even hitting one hundred points and coming in last.

So what did I think of Stone Age?

I enjoyed playing Stone Age. As a lightweight introduction to the worker placement genre of game, it certainly succeeds.

It did seem that if your first action when it was your turn as first player wasn't to grab the farming spot then you were at a disadvantage. My first time as the first player I didn't do this but went for one of the cards on the river. I didn't struggle to feed my workers, but it always meant I had to allocate two of my five workers to make sure I was bringing in food. So basically I had only three workers instead of four available for collecting resources to collect huts and the cards on the river.

I liked that you could block cards/huts to scupper the plans of the other players. Although this effectively also slows down your plans as well.

Our second and final game of the evening was Istanbul.

During the game the capitalism banter continued with Mat. Who did admit he was starting to like being a capitalist. If only we had recorded that quote.

I really liked Istanbul. We used the “beginners” tile setup. But with a “more advanced” setup and random tile setup there is a lot of variety of setup, which I like. It means the game board looks can be tailored for first time players and “experts”.

Right from your first turn you have several options to choose from. You don't get that “your first move has to be…” that Stone Age had.

The family members are a nice touch. Releasing them from jail to send them off to take an extra action. Or getting a reward for capturing another persons family member. A nice mechanic.

The tiles with abilities, bonus cards and the ability to increase the number of goods you can collect, nice additions that allow you to get an engine going. I had a tile that allowed me to pay two coins to recall an assistants. A useful ability that saved me having to return to the fountain to recall all my assistants.

The governor and smuggler were also a nice mechanic, especially with them being moved randomly around the tiles based on the role of the two dice.

Jonathan also won this game with Mat and myself drawing for last place! I had a nice little route going at the end. My mistake was not paying attention to the jewels that the other players had, especially Jonathan. I think I would have played with a bit more urgency otherwise.

Final thoughts…

Out of the two games played this evening my favourite and one I'd happily add to my game collection is Istanbul. I'm glad I played Stone Age, but it is not a game I'd ask to play, although I would happily play it if it hit the table.

Just in…

T.I.M.E. Stories, I think I already said in my Game of the Year predictions that I would get this game to play with Nath over Christmas. I will be getting the first expansion for the game The Marcy Case before my visit. Tom Vasel said that the Marcy Case is his favourite zombie game! High praise indeed. Nath will like playing that, he enjoys zombie themed games. Plus as the photo shows above they already named and given the genre/theme of two other expansions that will come me out next year.

I finally got fed up with waiting for Amazon to get this Deluxe expansion in. Not even a remote hint from them as to when they could deliver it. In the meantime every podcast going is discussing the cards in detail. It's frustrating to see everyone else with the game, and not hear anything from Amazon.

So after finding a rare online retailer that had it in stock, yes most have sold out. I now have my copy. Just need to play some games now!

 

Forever Fire

new arrivals, tee

A new tee arrived from Qwertee today, I love the design. No matter which version of Pokemon I play I always pick fire. Naturally Charmander is my fondest memory, because he was my first! It was meant to be harder starting with Charmander because of the initial gyms being types that were tough for a fire Pokemon to take on. But I never found that because I levelled up Charmander so he was tougher than the Pokemon I would be facing in the gyms.

It seems timely getting this shirt now that it's been announced that Red, Blue and Yellow are coming to the 3DS on the eShop.

Which Pokemon did you start with?

My Aunt and Uncle recently got back from a holiday in the US, which saw them visiting Memphis. Naturally that meant a look round Graceland and Sun Studio. Knowing I'm a bit of an Elvis fan they bought me back a cool Sun Studio tee, and their tickets for Graceland. The paper bag was also rather cool.

Great Customer Care

expansions, new arrivals

I have to say I'm very very impressed with Portal Games. I had ordered a mini expansion for Imperial Settlers from them and the very awesome t-shirt they sell called “Imperial Settler”. I just love that tee on so many levels. When they came up with this design it was a stroke of genius.

The mini expansion for Imperial Settlers makes passing in the game a tactical decision! It's going to be interesting to see how this impacts game play. Sometimes mini expansions can be just as hard hitting as larger expansions. And I think this along with the one I got below for another game fall into that category.

But it's the little things that impressed me with the order, like a Portal Games sweet, a promo card for one of their games (which I don't have), a nice little Tides of Time card I can use as a book mark.
Plus although I know it's a generic boiler plate letter they enclose with all orders, the included letter was still a nice touch. I liked the wording, love the fact they name the person who dealt with the shipment. It gives a nice personal touch that helps build that relationship between the customer (me) and Portal Games. Heck if I don't come over with warm thoughts when I think of Portal Games, Tides of Time, and Imperial Settlers now.

Although I haven't got the physical game of The Manhattan Project to the table yet (soon I'm sure), I have been playing the app version to get to grips with the game. Anyway there is a mini expansion for it called Nations that just arrived.

This expansion adds seven new cards to the game! These new cards are dealt out one to each player at the start of the game, and give a nationality and a unique ability to that player to use through out the game.

The cards will make the game even more thematic! Plus in the first full expansion they add even more nationalities apparently.

 

Explosive Fun

new arrivals, tabletop

I wonder how many gamers will be playing Hanabi tonight as part of their fireworks celebrations?

If I was feeling better I'd be using today as an excuse to get Hanabi to the table. There aren't that many games about fireworks, and even fewer in my collection (just this one).

Oh look what arrived today also…

Just need to get the game to the table (so ashamed of this fact).

 

Gaming Friday Part 1

new arrivals, tabletop
This morning I made a trip to my FLGS The Hobbit Hole in Chatteris. They had put aside for me the latest three Heroes and Villians for Imperial Assault, so it was time to pay and collect.

I hit Chatteris at nine, an hour before the store opened. So I found a really nice little coffee shop, had a rather nice cheese and ham omlette with a latte for breakfast. The cake also looked very very tempting, but I resisted (shocking I know).

But even after having breakfast there was still time to kill before The Hobbit Hole opened. So I did some window shopping of the shop. It was at this point I spotted a copy of Magic the Gathering Arena of the Planeswalker on the shops shelves!

This visit was going to be more expensive than I had planned.

Every time I've been to The Hobbit Hole it has always been welcoming. The owner opened up the store a little early for me, when they saw me outside. Which with the crap weather outside was much appreciated.

As my purchases were being put through, the owners seven (I think) year old daughter came down and started to distract her mum. So I asked her if she played games with her mum and dad, and what her favourite was. The little girl went straight over to a table in the middle of the store with Seven Wonders on it and said this. She had been playing it all week since they had got the game in.

The little girl then said she was going to ask if I wanted to play Seven Wonders. So after paying for my stash of gaming goodness, the three of us sat down to play a game of Seven Wonders, with the daughter called Sam in her pink Disney princess dress teaching us both how to play, because her mum had not played the game before.

It was pretty cool being taught by one so young. Apparently Sam also plays Magic, and participates in the Friday Night Magic stuff.

Sam royally thrashed both her mum and I at the game.

This was definitely a pleasant turn of events for the day. Seven Wonders is one of the games I have wanted to try, and I thought my first opportunity would be at the demo/tournament day that is going to be held at The Hobbit Hole mid November. I'm still going to the demo day, but now I know I'll have a good time. I just hope I don't have to face Sam in the tournament, my money is on her to win it

Dabbling With The Darkside

I had always said I'll not touch Magic with a barge pole. The whole CCG thing wasn't for me. It's a money pit, especially if you want to be competitive. It's one of the reasons I like the LCG format.

However I do enjoy watching the Spellslingers show on Geek 'n Sundry when they show it, which is a Magic the Gathering show. Plus when it was announced that Heroscape was finally getting re-released in the form of Magic the Gathering Arena of the Planeswalkers, I thought cool I've wanted to try Heroscape but it's another one of those games that's out of print and goes for silly money.

So temptation in my way I was going to cave and get the Heroscape update with the Magic theming.

So why did I buy an intro Magic deck? I thought I can be a casual player, I can handle it. I'll just dip my toe in the water. It will help me get more into the theme of Arena of the Planeswalkers. That's the thought process of this addict anyway.

Below the stuff I actually visited The Hobbit Hole for.

Then finally the latest volume of The a Walking Dead graphic novel dropped through the door. So my weekend reading has been arranged.

Keep an eye out later for Part Two of this post where I try my hand at being a craft beer brewer when I take part in a Game of Brew Crafters.