Category Archives: Space Hulk

Space Hulk

Why I keep extending my pile of shame

Space Hulk, starcraft

A conversation with my bestie North of the border, or the Scottish me as I like to refer to him, Duncan at the weekend bought up an interesting point. Which we both agreed on if the short time between writing this and the conversation hasn’t faded my poor memory too much.

That point was “why do we still buy new games, despite having a nice healthy pile of shame, that the new games will just make bigger?” and our joint answer was “because if we didn’t buy them, when in the future we did want to play them they would be hard to get, and cost a lot more than they did.”

That last bit I can back up with various examples, for instance lets take Glen More (which I now have thanks to a generous trade with Jonathan). The English edition is out of print, and hard to get hold of. If you don’t mind German and one of the bgg translations you can get it easily enough. It’s why I backed Lunarchitects at the time on Kickstarter. It’s basically Glen More but set on the moon! Despite the controversy that happened between the designer of this version and the publisher and original designer, at the time it was the only way to get an English version of the game. The publisher did say they would reprint the English version however that hasn’t happened yet.

Mind you I want to get a replacement copy of Viva Java the dice game (it’s the game I traded for Glen More), guess what thats “between printings” at the moment, and hard to get.

You want to play Starcraft the boardgame? Unless you are my friend Bob who got an amazingly rare bargain, good luck on getting this for less than £100. FFG no longer have the license so we won’t see it reprinted. Forbidden Stars was meant to be an “improved” version of this. However that is going to be just as rare now due to FFG and Games Workshop “falling out”. Oh and because of that break up good luck on getting Fury of Dracula Third Edition, or Space Hulk Death Angel and it’s expansions, or Blood Bowl Team Manager and expansions. Which reminds me I need to get the expansions for those two games.

Or take the Fantastic Four expansion for Marvel Legendary. You can’t get that at all now, because of Marvel killing off the Fantastic Four in an attempt to suck the life out of the team so that the movie rights get passed back to them. Which we all kind of want really. If you have seen the three movies you would be backing that decision too. However it means that expansion is like super rare and expensive now. Luckily I got it before this all kicked off.

So as you can see, yes I might not get the game to the table right away. But if I’m interested in playing that game, then buying it upon release is my best option to being able to play it in the future. Or I could just try and live with the fact that I don’t need to play the game, and concentrate on playing the ones I have more. Oh wait thats crazy talk.

A final admission before I close off this post. Since joining my local gaming group Fenland Gamers, my pile of shame has shrunk. The one thing I have noticed is that on the whole, my research into a game before getting them has paid off. So far as they have been hitting the table I haven’t hit a stinker yet or become candidates for Jonathan’s Nantucket Wing. Oh wait Dalek Dice was bad. Ok one so far. That’s pretty good going. Plus it wasn’t that expensive, not lost too much on that one.

PS Sorry for no snazzy image to go with this post

 

Fitting Up Dr Kinky

Fenland Gamers, play test, Space Hulk

Once more wannabe police officers Jonathan, Les and myself decided to patrol The Streets of Commonville to fit up another ne'er-do-well for crimes they didn't do (this time, but they are wrong 'uns and guilty, and need getting off the streets. The ends justify the means as the motto of the American justice system goes.)

For this play session Jonathan had pimped out the the tiles and tokens from laminated paper to “chunky” cardboard. As you can see from the photo above I used Bad Cop from The Lego Movie to track my character level.

These thicker components gave a nice feel to playing the game.

Once more cams were fitted to our patrolling officers so the whole game was recorded for prosperity and to be used against us by the game designers.

Even though the game still took an hour and a half to play, it didn't seem that long. There is no down time, no analysis paralyse, everyone was involved.

With three players the game board was opened up far more quickly than the two player game.

In an earlier patrol officer Jonathan testified that one tactic he saw being an option was having one player do the majority of the levelling up by getting the hoodlums. After this session I can't see that as a viable fun tactic to persue. I got stuck going after some hoodlums that turned out to be under control, with low time rolls, I wasn't able to do much, and needed dice passed to me to allow me to do things like reveal evidence. I ended up sacrificing my rolls to get dice needed by the others. It's not much fun.

I still think that there still needs to be another way to level up other than the hoodlums. And that the hoodlums need to be in less predictable positions.

It was interesting to hear that Jonathan's partner in design plays the game differently to us. Where we discuss tactics/options, who needs what dice, and we roll our dice together to achieve our aims that turn. While the opposite is true for the other designers testing. They roll and act independently. Curious, this doesn't strike me as playing it co-operatively. Interesting none the less though.

In the end we won by fitting up the suspect who got named Dr Kinky for his penchant for handcuffs.

Did we roll too many gain two minute faces? Possibly this time that was the way the dice landed. But on other occasions we didn't get nearly the same amount.

I look forward to seeing the next rules tweak after the designers have reviewed the video and discussed things over.

Father and Son Games This Christmas

Space Hulk, tabletop, X-Wing Miniatures, zombicide

Below you will find a list of the games I will be playing with Nath this Christmas when we spend some quality father and son time together over the holiday period.

I'd been after Space Hulk for a couple of years. It's a game I played once or twice while I was studying in Brighton many many moons ago. Which I had fond memories of, and now I wanted to play with Nath. Space Hulk is basically aliens the boardgame but set in the warhammer universe with space marines and gene stealers (the aliens). Nath would love playing this. Sadly the game was out of print and going for rediculous prices on eBay. But fate stepped in or more to the point Games Workshop did by doing a one off limited run of the game a couple of months back. Luckily I was able to get a copy at a lot more affordable price than the eBay ones from my local game store The Rift in Peterborough.
One of the hot games of this year, and rightly so. A japanese city building card game, which is great fun to play. Not sure how Nath will get on with this one, I think once he gets the idea he'll like it. I love the game.
We have played this once not long after I first got the game. Several ships later, and hopefully a star field playing mat arriving in time, Nath and I will be recreating skirmishes between the Empire and the Rebellion.
Marvel Legendary I'd been thinking about getting this for awhile. Researching it over the Summer. Then I saw the planned list of games for season three of Table Top. Marvel Legendary was on that list. If I didn't buy it soon, there would be little chance of getting it once the episode aired with it in. So I picked up this collaborative deck building game based on the Marvel universe. Since getting it I have got the Dark City expansion, and waiting on a couple of others to arrive. Nath will enjoy this I think. Nice thing is this has solo play rules, so once again I can learn the game before we play. Which always makes teaching Nath easier.
Staying with the collaborative deck building based on the same system as Marvel Legendary, is the game Legendary Encounters Alien. I think this is going to be Uber fun playing the movie scenarios with characters from the movie. But more importantly we will answer the question Wolverine vs Alien. Yes the games are interchangeable, so you can bet we will be dropping Wolverine into the Alien universe. It kind of reminds me of the crossover comics Dark Horse did in the late 80's early 90's where the alien/predators took on the likes of Batman and Superman. Ripley and Wolverine taking on the ultimate predator!
 

Another deck building card game, definitely one of the contenders for game of the year. This two player sci fi space battle themed game is great fun. I've been playing the iOS version to learn the rules so I can teach it to Nath. With a second deck it's possible to have more than two players. However this a quickish game to play, quick setup, and a blast. It lives up to the hype. I'm hoping Nath likes this one.

If this game wasn't one of the hot games of this year it will be now after being on TableTop. It started off the new season as the game played in the first episode. Not sure about how Nath will get on with this game. I won't explain the game here, go watch the episode of Table Top it does a far better job than I could. It's been hard finding an english version that is affordable. Amazon are selling a French edition! The U.S. editions on eBay are working out over £60. Well I suppose that's due to the Table Top effect. Luckily a Belguim company had an English language version at a much more reasonable price, and it will cross fingers be here before Christmas.

Finally coming out the week before Christmas Star Wars Imperial Assault. Descent the game set in the Star Wars universe. Another one of the hot games of this year and next (considering the time it's coming out). Nath and I will be playing this in skirmish mode if just the two of us. It's Star Wars of course Nath and I will love it.

So there you have it the list of games Nath and I will be playing this Christmas. I know considering how big a Zombicide fan I am, and Nath enjoys playing the game, why isn't that going? Well I do have a collection of games I've bought to play with Nath, a lot we haven't even gotten round to playing. So we have to make our way through those at some point too. My next Zombicide session with Nath will most likely be when season three comes out (I backed it on Kickstarter – so touch wood will get it in March). No DiceMasters either this time despite it being the game I'm playing the most at the moment. Well that's the plan but I may give in to temptation and include it.

I'm looking forward to my visit with Nath. Gaming whether cardboard or video gives me some quality time with my son. How we will squeeze everything in I don't know. We will give it a heroic effort to do so. But as long as we are having fun who cares if we don't play everything?

I hope the above list has given you some ideas of games to consider. I can assure you these are way way more fun than the “mainstream” stalwarts like monopoly and cluedo (to shame a couple).

 

New Tabletop arrivals

Munchkin, Space Hulk, tabletop, X-Wing Miniatures, zombicide

The last month has seen some tabletop arrivals and I thought I just do a “quick” post to tell you about what has come in, with more in depth looks later on (possibly).

First arrival is The expansion Toxic City Mall for one of my favourite tabletops Zombicide. Decided to go for this over Prison Outbreak because … well you will have to wait and read why.

Next in was Box of Zombies – Set #1: Walk of the Dead an expansion for the game Zombicide. So at the basic level this is me just buying some more walkers and fatties to use in the game putting off that moment when you run out of zombies and and have to give all the zombies on the board an extra activation phase because you can't spawn any more zombies! But when I look at this in more depth I'll cover the main reason I bought this expansion.

Continuing with Zombicide Expansions I also got the Zombicide Compendium #1, a collection in one place of sceneries and campaigns for season 1 of Zombicide (that's the original game). Bought mainly for the designer notes in it. But that's for a later post on another blog.

I ended up with these Munchkin Boxes of Holding unexpectedly because the retailer I ordered the Zombicide compendium from on Amazon screwed up my order and sent me these instead that were meant to have been sent to a person in Paris! So I can only assume my order went to Paris. I do hope they enjoyed the compendium. Anyway I got a refund and they never asked for these to be sent back despite me asking them to send a prepaid envelope to send them back in.

To celebrate I think 35 years since the original release of the game Ogre, Steve Jackson games have reprinted that edition and released it at its original price! So had to get just for that reason alone let alone I'm interested in trying the game anyway before buying one of the bigger editions.

Managed to get one of the current hot games to play the collectable Marvel Dice Masters Avengers vs X-Men, plus some of the boosters for it and an official play mat. This game is ridiculously cheap to get into, and the boosters are mega cheap.

Ok this was an impulse buy while purchasing the last item on this list. My latest addition to my Imperial fleet for the X-Wing Miniatures game a Lambda class shuttle. It's beautiful.

Finally out today a game I've been after for ages (it is out of print) that I wasn't expecting to be able to buy, and a total surprise that I have, but Games Workshop have just done a limited run reprinting (which sold out on the official GW website within a couple of days – eBay the game it goes for silly money hence why I hadn't bought it). Anyway my friendly local game store The Rift in Peterborough (great store – the owner Trevor is a really great guy, very friendly and helpful) got some in, and I was able to get my mitts on a copy. Oh the game? Space Hulk.