Monday saw the Gang of Four get together to attempt to get a win for the final month of December. Would it take both attempts? Would we even got a win? Our track record hasn't been that great so far, the game really has been owning us.

With the board setup, the three remaining objectives out, and looking at only having to complete two out of the three, we might just stand a chance of ending the game on a high.

Debbie read the mission brief for December. Our current objectives were all of a sudden the old torn up objectives. We now had two new objectives, one of them we had to find a stock pile of the CoDa virus hidden in all places Atlanta. Wow a final curve ball.

Debbie had swapped out her character for the virologist. Which with mine meant we had the characters good at curing the faded and vaccinate the faded cities. And that was to be our main task.

We focused a lot on locating that hidden stock pile. We were getting close. But we got washed away with tides of pandemics. The game had smacked us down once more, reminding us who the boss is.

With the board reset, this was it our final chance of going out with a win.

Debbie and I divided the globe for dealing with the faded, and vaccinating the cities. Matt and Jonathan were to control the virus outbreaks, AND find the stockpile.

Naturally Debbie and I helped out where we could. We found the stockpile. Phew one objective down. Plus we had found a cure. That helped take the pressure off. But we were burning through the player deck.

We had a win in sight. But did we have enough time? There were five cards left in the player deck! Debbie would be able to do her part of the plan to win. That accounted for two of the final five cards. Then it would be Matts turn, another two cards gone. If I couldn't do my part of the plan we'd lost. But I executed our plan to perfection. I vaccinated our final city to grab the win. It doesn't get closer than that.

We totalled up our score for our play through and ended up with a final score of 448. Not in the lowest bracket, so a little relief there.

Final thoughts…

So first up we got twenty plays out of this game. So for a £45 play through once legacy game, I think we got our monies worth out of the game. I know some suggest you can then use your final board and play the game as a regular pandemic, but with that personal touch. But I'm not sure I'd do that. I might give it a try.

For us we thought it was a bit on the mean side. Several times with victory in sight we managed to snatch a defeat.

Loved the story element of the game, and the new bits they threw in like the faded, vaccinations and searching. And the little faded figures, oh they are sooo cool. I thought the little vaccine pills looked like amber ants eggs. Not sure about the road blocks, we didn't really use these, the quarantine tokens I liked. The different building types were a nice touch.

I have to admit when I had to tear up my first card in the game I was a bit hesitant about it. But by the end I quite enjoyed it.

Overall I loved the whole experience of the game. It really worked. The plot twists, even when my character turned out to be a traitor and was gone from the game, were cool. Our issue as the graph above shows was the getting together to play.

I can't wait until Season Two, and see where the story takes us.

Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy app

You have been warned…

As the Rock would say if he was in our play group “Finally we get back to Pandemic Legacy. Finally we are attempting to beat the month of November!”

Yes you may be detecting a little frustration with our recent lack of plays. With the finish line in sight I'm hoping our final session doesn't get strung out.

But let's be positive about this we did manage to get together to take on November.

The months briefing fore told of our imminent demise.

That was it, no new surprises, we didn't need to scratch off the card provided because we had already opened the two required boxes in previous games.

We had three objectives to complete, one of which was the mandatory find three cures, with either destroy two military bases, vaccinate six cities, or build three vaccination centres (iirc).

In the players deck we had three one time use cards that allowed the avoiding of an epidemic card, at the cost of raising the riot level of any chosen city.

With Debbie doing the initial infections, she somehow managed to get a lot of faded on the board. I, I mean we, may have given Debbie a little grief over this.

I started off with one of the one time use cards. Which after a brief discussion was used, so that when we hit the next epidemic card we'd have a bigger pool of cards to cycle through so it wouldn't be so potent.

With an early vaccination centre built, I was picking up vaccines to try and clear up some of the faded so they didn't outbreak.

Matt destroyed the two military bases giving us that objective early. We cured a disease or two, vaccinated six cities, even built the three vaccination factories, whilst also finding the third cure.

We did use a second one off card, which Matt wasn't too keen on, and boy was he adiment that he wouldn't use the third and final one that he had in his possession. Maybe we will be thanking him when we play December for his stubbornness.

Finally and I'm not sure why we have waited so long in playing this, but we pulled the nuclear option and used an unfunded event we had that removed a city from the game forever, it also removed any virus counters and faded on it too.

There were a couple of minor misplays, yeah you'd think we'd be experts by now. But boy did it feel good to have a win back on the record books.

One more month to go and then for the time being our adventures together in the world of Pandemic will come to an end.

Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy app

Monday four bruised and battered adventurers once more tackled the month of October after managing to somehow get themselves back up off the ground from their last kicking by the game.

Joe the soldier had been dumped from the team, his inability to find a cure was not helpful. So parachuted in to take his place was Typhoid Mary the immunologist.

The easy objective of destroying two military bases was easily achieved, one of them was also a starting military base.

Between Mat and myself we had found two cures. The third was on its way. We had even built a vaccine building and had started making vaccine and using it to get rid of the faded.

Our third and final cure was in sight. In fact we were a couple of moves away from getting a much needed win.

That's when the game decided it had had enough playing with us, and it was time to put its meal out of its misery.

Once more an epidemic outbreak broke into pandemics, and like a broken record we ran out of faded and lost the game.

Our fourth loss in a row.

Mat was given the honour of opening the box he had been eying up since the beginning. Inside that mysterious box so many have seen but few have opened, were some cards! Cards that get shuffled into the players deck that will hopefully make our next game easier!

We decide to call it a day after yet another tick in the loser column, and attempt November next time.

But wow we are potentially now two games away from the end of the game, but with the way we have been playing more likely four.

Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy app

Wednesday saw the gang get together after a loooong hiatus (and still no ice cream or present from the holiday Debbbbie) to try and save humanity from being wiped off the face of the earth.

After restarting our first game once we realised we had already caught the paranoid soldier! Yeah that soldier that killed off my character Mustard by revealing he was a traitor! The character who was able to remove the faded. Our main source of doing this, apart from a couple of unfunded events. It was kind of a mercy restart also the game was kicking our butt.

With our restart well under way, things were not looking good. Things were just snow balling, outbreaks of the faded going unchecked, pandemics mounting up, a team decision was made to try and salvage something from this imminent defeat. We were going to concentrate on finding the virologist. At least we would have achieved something, an objective would have been completed. But more important another step to getting a cure for the faded.

It was a close one, but we did complete our manhunt, and the second piece of the cure puzzle found, before the game smashed us in the face.

So September had got the better of us. The game has a great win ratio against our team. Jonathan is going through a love hate relationship with it. Or more accurately battered player syndrome. The game keeps beating him up but he comes back for more.

We still had time to see if we could turn the evening around and get a victory on the sheet.

October saw us having to find patient zero at ground zero as a new objective. Not being able to remove the faded is hurting us. The nearest we can get to any form of control is quarantining cities. But it's not nearly as effective as removing them. Mustard you traitorous git you are truly missed.

Once again we set up to get patient zero as a priority. A priority we achieved. We now had all three parts of the puzzle for a cure. And our earlier misplay was now corrected. The universe was now back in alignment. Sadly the infected cities with the faded weren't. They were running away unchecked. We managed to complete a second objective of destroying two military bases, and cure a disease before time ran out like the faded. We could no longer place anymore faded on the board, so an auto loss.

Defeated again. But we did achieve some things we needed to do. We now have an answer for the faded. We can deal with them now. More about this next time when we can start using it in anger.

Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy app

Yesterday it was Queen Elizabeth II 90th birthday. To celebrate the local council organised a birthday cake and giant card for the serfs of Wisbech to sign and munch on.

The Mayor (I'm sure he's got an evil plan just like the one in season three of Buffy) turned up to cut the cake and make a short speech to a crowd of locals eager for cake. Yeah the crap we will put up with for free cake. To add to the occasion the vintage fire engine was also out on display.

In the evening our Scooby gang met up to tackle the month of September in Pandemic Legacy Season 1.

After a short discussion about the misplay from the previous month, we decided to play as if we hadn't made completed the immunologists goals yet, well we hadn't. And that was the misplay, or egg on face bit.

Apart from the objective of finding the virologist which we needed to do as part of finding the bits we needed for the immunologist. We now had to find the paranoid soldier.

As is normal we started with one objective complete, we had a military base in each of the zones. The faded were starting to build up, we had cures for two diseases, close to finding the virologist, and on the way to finding that paranoid soldier.

We had a lucky break and found the paranoid soldier. Another goal achieved, one cure and September was ours. Box six was opened, as the cards were read progressing the story, “wait! What? No go back what was that?”

NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Colonel Mustard was a traitor to the group! WTF???? He was lost, and had to be torn up. Our means of controlling the faded gone. For the rest of the game I'm a civilian.

OMG!!! The objective we auto complete is gone, replaced with a new one. What's just happened? We were further away from victory.

It turns out CoDa is all part of a complicated plot by a group called Zodiac, and was man made back at the CDC in Atlanta. We now had to start destroying military bases as acts of sabotage against the military plot of Zodiac.

Matt managed to destroy one military base, we just needed to get round again to him to do the second one. Jonathan had the cure for our final disease ready to go.

However we ran out of the faded to place on the board and therefore had an instant loss. The game had given us hope and then delivered a crushing soul destroying blow to us.

Apart from the hurt of losing another character (yeah I need to choose a new one for the September replay), the plot twist is cool, it wasn't cool losing a completed objective.

But this story is rather cool, I have loved the two major plot twists of the faded and now Zodiac. The searching for characters is good touch also. I am enjoying this story driven element of the game.

There wasn't enough time to do the second attempt at September that will have to wait until next week.

Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy app

After an intermission last night the A Team were back fighting to save the world.

Each month we start with an objective completed, because we have military bases in each of the zones. It's a nice feeling knowing we only have two objectives to complete.

Before August started we had some cards to read. Suddenly we weren't just searching for a virologist but also an immunologist. Another search board was added. This time we had to be in a rioting faded city to look for them.

We had a new character join our team Colonel Mustard, he had been drafted in to replace my quarantine specialist who unfortunately died in July. Mustard had the ability to spend an action to remove a faded figure from a city, plus he could freely move through roadblocks. Plus as a character upgrade when he left a city with faded on it one of them gets removed. With all that cool stuff he also had a draw back. For Mustard to cure a disease he needs to have two extra cards of the correct colour to cure it. Mustard was going to be our engine for controlling the faded.

With a little help from Jonathan and Debbie, Mat was able to find this new elusive immunologist. Lots of stickers were added to the rule book to cover the new stuff bought to the game.

This is where (just been looking up some stuff, and discovered this) we have done a MASSIVE misplay!!!!

We had discovered two cures, starting to look at the third when outbreaks overtook us and we had lost.

August reset time for our second attempt. We needed a win else we would be opening that mysterious box four.

We'd won! Our player deck was dangerously low. So pretty close. It helped having the Colonel keeping the faded down. He even cured a disease! Ok it took seven cards but he did it.

I'm loath now to talk about the win and how we got there, or my thoughts on the immunologist and the bits we missed played.

I'm not sure how we move forward with the misplay. It's going to have to be a group discussion on our next play.

Once we have a decision then I'll come back and look at the bits. At the moment I feel dirty and foolish.

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Oh spoiler alert. Yes it's that post again where I talk about my latest play through of Pandemic Legacy Season 1, which may or may not include spoilers. So if you want to remain oblivious to what happens in the game so that you too can experience all its twists and turns as surprises then stop reading now and see you in the next post.

She was only with us for a short time but her light shone brightly in that time. Last night Wanda the quarantine specialist passed away after a rather vicious attack by one of the faded fatally wounded her.

Basically last night the Scooby gang (yes I went there) finally after a couple of delays got to tackle the month of July in Pandemic Legacy Season 1.

Our first attempt at defeating July failed miserably. We did complete an objective or two, and were working on finding cures for all three diseases, when epidemics turned into pandemics and outbreaks just over ran us. It all happened so fast we didn't know what hit us.

One thing we had to do was build a research station in a city that was faded. Why? Well that's where the virologist is hiding who may have a cure for the faded! Well we are assuming it's a cure, we won't know until we find them (a new objective) and can reveal on the card what they have discovered.

Our second attempt at completing July was off to a good start. We automatically complete one objective now each game, because we have a military base in each zone. Which means only two objectives to complete.

We had two diseases eradicated, another objective down, and with Hawkeye sitting with enough cards to cure the final disease we were damn close to winning. However the faded were ripe for out breaking big time. Our team just needed to get to Hawkeyes turn.

On B's turn an epidemic hit causing a minor outbreak placing a faded in the city Wanda was in. She already had two scars. At the start of her turn she was dead!

It came round to Wandas turn, the faded delivered its fatal blow to her. A civilian popped into her place to try and carry on her good work. But to no avail, another epidemic hit, this time the faded damn burst, the tidal wave of pandemics started to hit, we could have survived but ran out of faded figures. Game over.

That was close, damn close.

Looks like another new team member joins us for August.

Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy app

So one more time with feeling…

This post is about my play through of the game Pandemic Legacy Season 1 with my friends. So the following may or may not contain spoilers for the game. If you don't want to read possible spoilers for the game then stop reading now and join me in my next post.

Right if you are still reading this post let's begin…

Last night Debbie was back from her award winning performance of third tree from the left in the local amdram performance of Annie. Apparently the reviews were amazing. How good was Debbie's performance? Several dogs mistook her for a real tree, that's how good.

Before our game started with the agreement of Jonathan, Debbie and Matt, I swapped my character from Token Sexy Scientist to Wanda (I think that was her name) the quarantine specialist. I could now travel using the army bases, place one quarantine token anywhere on the board once per turn, and if a quarantine token was on the same city as me it stayed put if there was an infection there.

Before we got underway with the month of June, the legacy deck introduced equipment to the game. We then carried out the initial infection once more, decided our starting spot, along with our starting funded events (because of previous failures we were back upto six for this attempt at June).

I think this play through of June can best be described as close, but not close enough.

We had two cured diseases, about to eradicate one, nearly had army bases in all zones, and close to having seven quarantine markers out. But despite all that hard work, we got our butts handed to us and were overrun by outbreaks.

Our third loss. One more and we get to open the 'box'. The one you open after four losses in a row.

Time to reset the board and try again with eight funded events.

The faded are starting to get established on the West Coast of America. But we in reply are starting each game now with four army bases already in place. A great start of achieving one of the objectives very quickly. We got a few quarantine markers out on the board. Once more we cured C-ThatCam-Major.

If you are in a city with a faded in it at the start of your go, you take a scar. A scar is something negative, like you can hold one less card in your hand, or you get one less action a turn. I made the mistake of being in an occupied faded city at the start of one of my turns and had to take a scar.

Matt also made the same mistake, and took a scar. He then had to take another scar later. One more and his Zardoz would be dead. Guess what? An outbreak of a faded happened on the city he was safely sitting in. Zardoz was dead.

Below Matt gets all emotional at the death of Zardoz.

Matt had to take over one of the civilian ids to finish off the game. Which luckily was a couple of turns later.

We had army bases in all the zones, more than seven quarantine markers and was just about to eradicate C-ThatCam-Major for the win.

The fourth defeat had been avoided, but at what cost?

Before the start of July we get a bonus for completing June. Matt will get to choose a new character to play, which I believe he has already decided on. And we will be down to six funded events.

That's 50% of the game played. Wow, what an experience so far.

Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy app