Category Archives: star realms

star realms

Neeeew Arrivals End of Feb

new arrivals, pandemic, star realms, tabletop

Wish Amazon had got this in stock in time for the Pandemic Party, but hey a month late is better than never. I'm looking forward to playing Pandemic with this expansion, which for the friends I play with is essential as it adds a fifth player to the game, so all five of us can play it.

The holy grail arrives

Finally! Finally! The Crisis expansion is in my hands!!!! After what seems like an age since the Crisis expansion for Star Realms was released (apparently it was released or due to have been released just before Christmas). I'm looking forward to adding the cards from these four expansion packs that make up the Crisis expansion to the Star Realms deck. I warned the student I played against this week that next time we play the game will have new elements. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Heroes and Events cards effect the game.
In the meantime in the app version of the game my friend in the US of A Freddy is kicking my butt in the game. I can try and convince myself that the cards were against me. But the truth is Freddy is a more skilful player than me. In one game I know the exact point I lost, and it's was me not having faith in my cards. I could of taken Freddy down to one authority by scrapping a couple of cards but didn't, thinking I could finish Freddy off next go. But that wasn't the case, Freddy rallied and defeated me two rounds later.
The screenshot below shows me drawing even with another friend in games with my biggest winning margin. Now why can't I play like this against Freddy? Although what helped me was a tactical error by my opponent that left The Hive base in play allowing me to get faction combos working with all my blob faction cards. In fact the exact same tactical error the student I played did earlier in the week.
I love playing Star Realms either using the app or the cards. But for me the cards still feel different when playing. It will feel even more different with the expansions in until the expansions get added to the app. Which they will be at some point this year.
Finally as the photo shows the green ten sided dice also arrived. These as stated in a previous post this week will be used to track authority within the card version of the game.

 

Star Realms an obvious idea

star realms, tabletop

 

So played another game of this today but with a student. It was a comfortable win but when the student usually plays with a friend instead of the authority cards to keep track of authority they use two ten sided dice. One to represent tens and another to represent units.

Why hadn't I thought of that? The cards work, but it is fiddly almost awkward keeping track using them. This is a much simpler and easier option. However it doesn't store in the small box that the game comes in, which the cards do.

So I really really want to get the Star Realms storage box, it will hold the cards and and four dice easily. I've not seen the storage box on sale in the UK yet. But then again I've not come across the play mats either. I'm hoping we get these in the UK soon along with the Gambit expansion.

In the meantime, in the game they use the colour green to represent authority. This got me thinking, how about using green ten sided dice with the game? So now I've got some green ten sided dice on their way, along with the Crisis expansion packs. I think the green dice will be cool with the game. And I'm so excited about adding the new cards to the game.

An update on my games with the Games Quest guys, we seem evenly matched, I win a game, they win a game, then I win a game and so on. Some how I need to improve my game to break the deadlock. I know one or two of my weaknesses, but more studying of tactics etc is in order.

 

 

Great Start To The Week

lego minifigs, netrunner, star realms, tabletop

So the cape for Bane arrived today which I got through eBay, it looks really cool and finished off the minifig for me. The added bonus was a surprise free black cape. That was pretty cool, and now being so easily bribed heck when I need to get some ponchos guess where I'll be looking first for them?

Then this evening from The Entertainment Centre at the heart of the capital of the universe Wisbech I got a great deal on the Western Emmet from The Lego Movie. Which looks, wait for it… AWESOME!
They also got in a Jason Vorhees Pop! figure which now joins the Black Widow and Lady Sif I have. I had promised myself I wouldn't become that guy who buys these sort of things (oh hark look at the minifig collector getting high and mighty). Sadly that pusher of such things Bouncy at The Entertainment Centre has hooked me in, and turned me into that guy! Mind you I had seen Jason in a Facebook feed Friday, thought it looked pretty cool, low and behold Bouncy the Walter White of Videogames and merchandise in Wisbech goes and gets it in! He's evil I tell you.

A couple of firsts happened today, I finally got to play Star Realms using the physical cards. I also played with the cards from the event packs mixed in. Good grief the Megahaulin card is powerful. It seemed a little weird playing with cards, less random. The cards also felt better distrubuted when being dealt into the trade row. It was fun, and I'm not just saying that because I won.

Finally thanks to a friend I had my first game of Netrunner using a learning deck created by my friend. I was playing a hacker deck. I won, but did really enjoy the game. I can sadly seeing myself getting into this game big time. Curses another game for the collection. I'm looking forward to my next game, and learning the game better. I can see myself tending towards playing hackers over the corporate side.

 

Minifig Saturday and I’m a winner

lego minifigs, star realms

Minifig Saturday it is then. There is gaming stuff going on I can assure you. Yesterday Games Quest had a Star Realms competition where if you beat them playing the game using the app and posted a screen shot of the win, they would send you the Crisis expansion pack of your choice. I won my game and couldn't decide which to have so I asked them to choose at random for me. So a surprise prize is on its way. We played a second game that I lost. So I'm going to challenge them to a third game as a decider.

I think it's well known by now how I get forgetful over stuff ordered. I'm pretty sure I ordered the set of Crisis expansions but for the life of me can't remember who from! I might order an extra set just incase my mind is playing tricks on me. Which it often does. If I end up with two complete Crisis expansion sets, I guess we will have a first for the reborn blog a competition. (Yes years ago we had competitions but that was as the old blog not the new!)

Yesterday I was meant to be teaching and playing Star Realms with a friend, but serendipity meant instead I ended up chilling out with friends, chewing the fat over, righting wrongs. We ended up in the local Burger King, where the service was soooo slow. And it took them three attempts to get my friends burger correct! The compensation burger they gave my friend was awesome. Another friend had the Taco ranch burger and that was the sorriest burger I have ever seen at Burger King. It was more a kids burger or entree, it was so tiny for the money. I would of felt robbed and my friend who ordered it did. Anyway this is a point to this little tale (thank god I hear you say), we have arranged a gaming night round mine for tonight. So expect a write up about that tomorrow.

Well as the diptic photo below shows a Bane (movie version) minifig has arrived. I bought a trench coat for it too separately which will arrive Monday I think. That will finish the Bane minifig off nicely. The other figure turned up too which is Tonto with an open fire. I wanted the fire for camping vignettes I have planned. The Tonto figure was a very nice bonus. I like the figure a lot, and having The Lone Ranger and Tonto is really cool. The look of Tonto in the more recent Lone Ranger movie was one of the things I loved. I know Depp and the Director based the look of Tonto on a famous painting of an Native American. Having done a quick google I'm seeing results that are declaring the painting and Depps depiction of Tonto as racist. This isn't something I have spent time thinking about, and hadn't occurred to me. I'd like to discuss this with an Native American, I really don't know enough about this subject and if this is a racist depiction. I would not be surprised if it was. What I do know is I don't know what an accurate depiction would be.

I don't want to use ignorance as an excuse and I won't, I'd rather I have the facts and make an educated and informed decision.

I do enjoy using the motivational poster app on the iPad to produce these posters of the minifigs. Especially when I am using quotes from that the character said in the movie.

Well yesterday was Friday the 13th, so a photo like the one below had to be done. It's the Jason Vorhees minifig with Friday the 13th Part 4 playing in the background on the tv.

Let me know what you think about this post in the comments below. I do moderate comments before putting them live. Just to catch spam and offensive comments. Otherwise even if you disagree with me the comment will appear.

 

New Arrivals New Arrivals – mid Feb 15

dice masters, lego minifigs, new arrivals, star realms

I'm starting this new arrivals post with Lego minifigs. I'm still awaiting for some parts to arrive from France, but in the meantime I managed to get a Lone Ranger minifig and also the Lego City Polar Accessory Kit. I got this mainly for its accessories. I wanted a tent, and the stove, the mugs and axes are a bonus. But there is also what looks like a lolly which is a little hand trowel. These accessories will help me in my backpacking scene I will be creating.

Next in is some Dicemasters stuff. Top photo shows the three cards from the Days of Future Past OP kit. I had bought the first OP kit as well, however that seems to have been lost by the courier, and I got a refund. So now need to source another copy of that.

The bottom half shows off the final nine cards that I needed to complete the Avengers vs X-Men Dicemasters. So I'm happy about that. My set does not include the alt art cards, that's a silly root for me to take as the Tsarina alt art card is going for silly money.
Next month get the final cards to complete the Uncanny X-Men set.
Finally on the Dicemasters front the Yu-gi-oh! Starter set also arrived. I think I need nineteen cards to finish off this set after getting the starter and a gravity feed. So that isn't bad. The cards are either rare or ultra rare.
Also arriving are the cards from the two tournament kits that Star Realms had last Summer. Star Realms is one of my favourite games at the moment. Obviously there are spares which I'll be giving away. I'm going to need to get another base game. Then I can have a copy of the base game to teach new players with, and a copy of the game with the expansions added to play with experienced players. I still need to find a copy of the Gambit expansion, and I haven't seen anyone advertising the storage box yet.

Finally I have for some reason two copies of the Blackmailer promo card for Cash 'n Guns 2. Could of sworn I only clicked it once! And also with that came the Kickstarter Deluxe Content for Tiny Epic Kingdoms. This adds three new factions and the exploration expansion.

So that's the new arrivals wrapped up. Some cool stuff I think. I'm going to leave this post with something I shared on Instagram/Twitter/Facebook yesterday, I hope you like it.

 

Not So Random Stuff About Expansions

pandemic, star realms, tabletop

I've mentioned in a previous post that I like games that have expansions. They expand the game! Add new options, modes of play, more players, new scenarios, etc. Basically add more variety. They aren't necessary on the whole but for the odd game they are to make the game more enjoyable.

New Arrival

Today the Harbour Expansion for Machi Koro arrived. It adds the cards to allow a fifth player, new cards and play modes. I'll do a more indepth look in another post.

In the Harbour Expansion is also a teaser for the next expansion coming out later this year!

A Brief Rant

One game I'm playing a lot of at the moment (admittedly using the iPad app) is Star Realms. There are two main expansions for this deck building game, Gambit and Crisis. But can I buy these in the UK? Nope nowhere has them in stock. Ones I can find are in the US and with postage (and possible import duty) really expensive. The Crisis expansion is made up of four individual themed packs, each costing (if available in the UK £3.95 – yeah back to the $1 = £1 exchange rate). However buying them through eBay means each pack is pushing over £10! The Gambit expansion is roughly £20 for a £10 game. It's rediculous. So why is there such a shortage in the UK? This is making the Marvel Dice Masters Avengers vs X-Men shortage last year look like a small blip. I won't even mention how hard it is to source an official play mat for Star Realms, or how my heart sinks at the thought of how hard it is going to be to get the storage box (with exclusive promo card) and the official card sleeves. Poor supply is such a frustrating thing, and there is no excuse for it in this day and age. I understand that companies can be caught be surprise by being a lot more popular than they thought they would be with a game. But still I think the writing has been on the wall that Star Realms would be a popular game.

A Bit of Gaming News(ish) Or What Matt Leacock Did Next

Later this year a new co-operative game based on Thunderbirds is coming out. The game is design by Matt Leacock and published by Modiphius. Matt is famous for such games as Pandemic, Pandemic the Cure, Forbidden Desert, and Forbidden Island. All great co-operative board games. So the early indications are this should be a great game, great theme, great designer that excels at co-operative games, a theme that is suited to co-operative play.

It does look like Matt has a busy year ahead of him. Matt also has Pandemic Legacy coming out later in the year, which he has been developing with Rob Daviau ( designer of Risk Legacy). And is highly anticipated by Pandemic fans ( that includes me ).
As the image above shows there are plans to have two different boxes with different art work on. There was another game last year (name escapes me at the moment) that was released also with multiple variants of the box art. I'm not sure I like this trend. It reminds me a bit of the comic book industry and how they do this a lot (just look at how many variant covers there are for the new Marvel Star Wars comic issue 1). It strikes me as trying to milk money out of collectors.
Then finally in the first part of this year there is a new expansion for Pandemic coming out called State of Emergency.

So there you have it a brief “look what's just arrived”, a rant venting my frustration, and a “look what I'm excited about coming out later this year”.