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news

Hitting next week starting 28Mar16

Only one thing of interest in my world coming out next week via our Esdevium/Asmodee overlords. That something is the first expansion for Epic the Card Game from White Wizard Games, Tyrants.

I'm a bit disappointed in pricing. Each of the four packs that make the expansion up contain twelve new cards. So for forty eight new cards the cost is more than the base card set of one hundred and twenty. Plus if you are running three sets to make an epic cube how many copies of these expansions do you need?

I'm hoping that with this expansion hitting retail that my FLGS will be able to order the game day and tournament kits.

While I'm talking White Wizard Games and their great games, apparently hitting Kickstarter soon is a new version of Star Realms with a fantasy theme called Hero Realms. Excited by this news. I hope they don't make the same mistakes they did with Cthulhu Realms, ie over iconify the cards.

 

14Mar16 Esdevium Gifts

Slightly delayed due to my playing games last night (more on that in the next post) I bring you my highlights of our weekly gifts that the Asmodee Borg Collective member Esdevium deem fit to shower on us.

The biggest one for me this coming week is the second data pack in the Mumbad Cycle of the Android Netrunner universe, Business First.

Munchkin is like the marmite of the hobby gaming world. You either love it or hate it. I fall on the love it side of things. So for some the next item will have their flesh crawling, while for others they will be excited.

Fluxx the card game that is like playing a game on quicksand. The rules are constantly changing, as is how to win. This randomness can be a turn off for some. I love it. My go to version of the game is Star Fluxx the scifi themed one. Although big tip here for those that have a python fan in the family, get them the Monty Python version of the game. Anyway I'm excited about this next version coming out. I love Firefly (although I don't have any of the boardgames based on it). So this has put a big smile on my face, and an instant addition to my wishlist.

Want to build a really really cool tree house? Well want no longer, build away in Best Treehouse Ever. And nice to see this Kickstarter hit the shops.

Elder Sign a Cthluhu co-op dice game set it the same FFG gothic universe as Arkham Horror, and Eldritch Horror sees its third expansion released next week, Omens of Ice.

There are also a X-Wing wave released next week, some Pokemon cards, and Force of Will bits released if they float your boat.

And that's next week goodies coming out to part you from your hard earned pennies.

 

Landing next week 8th March

It's that time once more for me to tell you about stuff coming out next week that has caught my eye. You know what I'm into and what I like by now. So the the stuff I highlight shouldn't be a surprise.

At last the Star Realms expansions are finally hitting our stores. I need to get Colony Wars, having given Nath my copy at Christmas. Mixing it in with the base game gives a massive pile of cards to play with. Which reminds me I need to source more of the official card sleeves for Nath and myself. Esdevium need to get those in along with the playmats.

Next up Pandemic Legacy is being restocked. If you haven't got it yet, you MUST. It's an awesome game. It doesn't matter which one you get, they are the same, except for the box colour.

Finally the new draft set for Netrunner splashes down. I think they have pitched the price of the two draft decks a tad high.

The second D&D Dicemasters set also hits the stores, but I've opted out of the whole Dicemasters thing because of their release schedule. I still like the game, just not the way Wizkids are doing it.

 

A mid week father son gaming day

I'm down visiting Natha at the moment. I had to come down to make sure he got to the dentist. Let's just say that his track record of attending has been poor. So yesterday he went to his second appointment to sort out some tooth ache he'd had a couple of weeks back. Which resulted in the pain inducing tooth being extracted! So even more pain for Nath.

We followed the dentist visit up with a trip to the Farnborough cinema to see Deadpool (such a great movie) and London Has Fallen (an average at best sequel). This is something that I haven't done in a long time, back to back movies. Between films we grabbed a quick guilt loaded bite to eat at McDonalds.

But that was our Tuesday. What about today though?

Well once Nath was up, and I had fed him breakfast (American pancakes) we played our first game of the day Eminent Domain. A game I have been wanting to get to the table since getting it second hand off Facebook.

I liked playing Eminent Domain a lot. The game did not disappoint. Setup was fairly easy, and quick. Always good. I like the turn structure a lot. It's simple, but does the job. At the start of your turn, you can play a card from your hand if you wish to perform its action. You then have to select a role from the middle and play that role ability. This builds up your deck, allows you to get resources for the path you are following, explore planets, research new technologies. The other players also have the option of also following that role or dissenting (which is basically draw a card from your draw pile).

Finally the turn is ended with a tidy up phase for the current player where played cards go on the discard pile, a player can discard unwanted cards in their hand, and finally draw back up to five cards.

I ended up taking an explore colonise path, while Nath went down the more aggressive war route and conquered his planets.

Neither of us tried the produce/trade route, and Nath was the only one out of the two of us who did any research to get those more advanced technology cards for the deck.

There is very little interaction between players, but you are still involved between turns, trying to work out whether following the others role phase is useful in advancing your own goals, or is it better to draw that extra card?

I ended up beating Nath 39 victory points to 27.

Next up was what must be Nath's favourite card game or even modern board game, Star Realms.

It felt like we were playing with everything plus the kitchen sink in the cards we were using. Base game, Gambits, Crisis (minus heroes cards), Colony Wars, plus Cosmic Gambits. That's a hell of a lot of cards. We had the draw deck for the trade row split into three piles.

There was

In the end having done superior scrapping to give him the edge he needed, Nath delivered the killing blow of 21 points of damage to remove my 19 points of authority.

Our final game of the afternoon was Discoveries. This game is on my list of ones to try and play this first quarter of the year.

Once again a very quick game to setup. There was a bit more referring to the rules for our play of this compared to Eminent Domain.

However once you get used to the turn structure this is a nice little dice allocation game. The part of American history this is set in is neither here or there for me. The look of the game is nice, and subdued. They have gone with wooden dice for the game, that do feel “light”, but look and fit in with the theming.

Once again there is very little interaction between players. Being limited to the grabbing of your dice back from another player, or grabbing a grey tribe dice from the player with the most of them. Between turns you are mainly planning how best to utilise the dice you have available to achieve your goal.

As I said I liked the game, it will be interesting to see how this plays with three or four players. Will it feel different?

Oh and as the score pad shows I won ^__^

Finally some news!

Coming soon to a Kickstarter near you I believe (can't remember where I saw this Kickstarter reference) from Albino Dragon is The Goonies Adventure Card Game. Once I know more details I'll post them.

When I mentioned to Nath about this, all I got was “what is The Goonies?” He hasn't seen the movie!!! I never thought I'd fall into that group of bad parenting that also includes having not shown their kids Star Wars, Back to the Future, Indiana Jones. How did this happen? I've made a point of making sure Nath has seen the modern classics.

I'm going to have to rectify this ASAP.

 

Prepare for battle…

Hot on the heals of the announcements last week for Epic of the game day kits and store tournament kits comes this new announcement from White Wizard Games about giving Epic a Worlds.

That nice funny money figure of $100,000 is not for one person, but spread out amongst those taking part in the Worlds. With a not to be sniffed at top prize of $25,000.

Here are the words that White Wizard sent:

I am thrilled to announce the $100,000 Epic World Championship tournament. Event details can be found here.

Epic was designed to provide a complete trading card game style experience at a tiny fraction of the cost. I am very proud of the depth of game play and strategy the game provides for both sealed and constructed play.

The one thing Epic was missing was high-end events to inspire players to build the best-possible constructed decks and to push their strategies in awesome limited formats like dark draft. This high-end play doesn't just benefit the competitive tournament player, it also provides a wealth of internet content like cool deck lists that casual players can build and try at home or in a local casual event.

Every one of the 64 qualifying players in the Epic World Championship will get a cash prize and awesome Epic swag! The road to Epic Worlds begins at SXSW Gaming in just a couple of weeks. Best of luck to all in your quest to qualify!

Thank you again for backing Epic!

-Rob

My concern is that there will not be a nationals in the UK, and therefore a chance for a UK champion to participate. We will be lucky if we get a store tournament, let alone a regionals to feed into the nationals.

There seems to be very little up take in the UK or even a distributor (I'm sure there must be one, but I'm waiting to find out who from White Wizard so my local FLGS can order the game day and store kit).

I love that White Wizard are doing this, it shows ambition and support for a great card game.

The deck building card game with a historic theme has been relaunched on Kickstarter. This is a great game and worth a punt if you like the genre.

You can back Ages HERE

 

Planeswalkers and Being Epic

In the last couple of days White Wizard announced the release date for the first expansion for Epic called Tyrants.

Before this announcement they had been putting previews of some of the new cards in the expansion up on the Epic Facebook page.

At the same time White Wizard also announced the details of a game day kit, and tournament kit. You can guess what I'm going to be asking my FLGS to get in.

This is great news seeing White Wizard supporting the game. My question on the expansion is will I need three copies as I do for the base game for catering for the larger draft formats or deck building?

Also the expansion may hit stores in March in the US. But there is a loooong delay afterwards before we will see them on the shores here. We still haven't seen the Star Realms Colony Wars yet over here. This seems a regular problem for White Wizard, and I'd love to see them resolve this.

Magic the Gathering Arena of the Planeswalker

Over the last couple of days news has also leaked out in the autumn we will see another expansion for Magic the Gathering Arena of the Planeswalker.

From the info/rumour I've seen on a forum or two this will be a large expansion, same size of the original game, and not require the base game. It will have five new Planeswalkers, which will be dual colour, plus all the supporting terrain, cardboard, etc. And naturally be playable with what has come before.

So MtGAotP has been out six months now, we have seen one expansion, that barely added much to the game. Team/deck building is not really an option as it stands.

If I compare this to Imperial Assault in fourteen months we have seen two deluxe expansions, and several Hero and Villians packs, a Worlds competition, active support for stores to host game nights with kits. In the skirmish games there has been a lot better ability to team/deck build.

Imperial Assault really does show what might have been and could be if Hasbro actually got behind this game. Failing that I pray Plaid Hat buys the rights to the game mechanics/rules and releases an Ashes version with better support.

 

New Releases For Next Week 29/2/16

So it's that time of week again when the local branch of the Asmodee collective Esdevium come down from upon high and tell us what we are being allowed to buy next week from them.

First up is a game Tom Vassel of Dice Tower fame is singing the praises of…

Next up is a reprint of the game I haven't got to the table yet Dead of Winter.

Remember last week they released a Super Mario Playmat? Well this week we are getting Super Mario deck boxes. They look bloody amazing.

Finally the biggy of next week for me is…

Some Netrunner fans have this already because they paid the excessive postage wanted by FFG to ship it. Now it is the time for those of us who were prepared to wait for it to arrive in the UK to get our copies.

I think from one or two posts I've seen the supply is limited, and some shops aren't getting their full orders. So I think I'm going to be one lucky person when I get my pre-order.

So I'm looking forward to next week…

 

Patchwork hits iOS

Who would of thought I would be getting excited over a game about making a patchwork quilt?

Yesterday an app version of the 2014 two player game hit both the iOS App Store and that other lesser one.

I hadn't played the original physical game, but one of my regular Star Realms opponents has, and put up on Instagram that they had just downloaded the app and was asking for people to play against. So I thought why not? The app once I found it on the App Store was only $2.99, so a bargain.

Once downloaded, I went through the tutorial and was instantly hooked. I love the Tetris feel of the placement of the tiles that represent the quilt patches. Then there is the timeline, and the currency being buttons. Love those touches. And the button currency very thematic.

Each patch has a cost both in buttons and time it will advance your counter on the timeline. Certain points on the time line when you cross them will generate more buttons for you to spend, and there are single square patches that if you reach first can be used to plug that odd gap on your quilt.

Love, love, love it.

Digidiced the developer of the app have done an amazing job. I've installed the game on my 6S, and it's usable on the smallish screen, the buttons are on the tad small side.

The game looks amazing, plus the in-app purchases are just themes for the game, so if you want to change the appearance you can. But I love the default look.

Now I wish other app devs would learn from these guys, because the app comes with asynchronous online play straight out of the box. Too many boardgame apps are being released these days without this feature, with the promise of it coming in a future release. The bread today, jam tomorrow deal. It's one of the reasons I took so long getting the Splendor app, it still doesn't have the online play. But a 99c sale over Christmas saw me cave in. Digidiced have just hit it out of the ball park here, and deserve a big hearty pat on the back for this.

So there you have it, a great two player game on iOS, well worth getting. And you can guess what will be added to my game collection soon.

 

An RPG Bargain

Those Humble Bundle folks have done a massive and I mean massive bargain for those that want to try the Pathfinder RPG, or even just want to dip their toes into the dark murky waters of role playing. For about $16 you get $350 worth of Pathfinder goodness in digital form.

Not only is there a great deal on the table, there is also a series of videos about how to play the Pathfinder RPG! The link can be found on the Humble Bundle page.

For $25 plus shipping costs you can also get the beginners box in physical form!

This really is a steal. If you have been tempted to part with your money for this to good to be true deal, click HERE.

Yes I have got this. I'm not mad!

 

New Next Week 22/2/16

It's that time of week where the UK branch of the Asmodee Borg collective Esdevium let us mortals know what presents from above we will be bestowed with, and allowed to buy.

As always this is what caught my eye, and is not everything they are distributing to stores next week.

First up is the Blessed vs Cursed Duel Decks for Magic the Gathering.

These are a great deal for those that are into “Magic lite”, who like playing but don't want to invest tonnes of money into the game.

There are also deck boxes and a two player playmat themed around this duel deck coming out at the same time.

Next up is one I'm really really excited about.

Tokaido is a beautiful looking game, and a game I love playing (needs to hit the table soon I think). So a chance to pimp it out with this official kit is really exciting. And just the excuse to get it back to the table.

Finally oh I've got to get this playmat.

Now you've seen it, I needn't say any more about it, it's bloody obvious why I want this.