Category Archives: tabletop

Some Suggestions For The Star Wars Fan

imperial assault, star wars, tabletop

Tomorrow sees the release of the new Star Wars movie, and yes I'm going to see it.

We in the “hobby” gaming world are a bit luckier than those that get their games from mainstream outlets. How? Well we have been over the last three or more years been lucky enough to have some really great Star Wars games to play.

Fantasy Flight Games have done a really great job of releasing great games, that look amazing, and give a really enjoyable experience.

Capture the feel of dogfights between squadrons of rebel and imperial ships from the Star Wars universe. The base set gives you the two fan favourites of an X-Wing and two Tie Fighters to battle it out. The base set gives you everything for two players to fight it out. Currently there are two versions of the base set. The newest version gives you versions of the X-Wing and Tie Fighter based on the new movie.

There are a lot of expansions for this game, that give you more ships from the Star Wars universe like Tie Bombers, Y-Wings, A-Wings, the Millenium Falcon, Slave 1 to name a few.

I will warn you this game is like crack, once you play you get hooked and start buying more and more ships.

The models look stunning in this game, and when played on a playmat (usually of some awesome star field/space image on) this game takes your breathe away.

Based on the Descent system, Imperial Assault moves its mechanics to the Star Wars universe.

The amazing thing about this game is that you get two games in one! You have the campaign mode, where one player plays as the Empire while the other players play as the rebels. Plus you also get a two player skirmish mode, where two players go head to head with their teams fighting it out.

The miniatures are super amazing in this game. But then so do all the components for the game.

There are expansions for this game, introducing fan favourite characters like Han and Chewy.

So they are the two I have played. I still have the Carcassonne Star Wars edition to get to the table. But I'm a fan of Carcassonne so I'm hoping this is a match up that works.

Also from FFG you can get the following Star Wars games, which I don't own and haven't played. So I'll apologise now for the rubbish coverage of them. However these have had some good reviews. And if I had the budget I'd definitely be buying Armada.

  • Star Wars Armada – this is gives you the big ships from the Star Wars universe like the Imperial Star Destroyer and allows you to recreate epic space battles between the Empire and Rebels.
  • Star Wars LCG – a two player card game using the FFG living card game model.
  • Star Wars rpg – if you like Star Wars and role playing games, nuff said.

From the mainstream market there is the new Star Wars Risk, which apparently not being as good as the fabled expensive out of print Queens Gambit, is still from reviews I've seen a decent game, that is similar to Queens Gambit and not actually Risk.

So I hope that's given you some ideas for games to play with the Star Wars fan in your life. Or even buy (although some of these are not cheap) for that special Star Wars fan.

 

Villas and Trains

Fenland Gamers, game night, tabletop
With such a bounty of games (photo below) all in one place it can only mean one thing. Yes another Fenland Gamers meetup.
After renewing friendships and making new ones, we got down to some gaming.
Our first game of the evening was the “classic” Alhambra. I was glad Gavin had bought this. The game has been in my collection for a long time, but sadly has been sitting in my pile of shame. I have played the game using the app a couple of times, but I find the interface of the app a hindrance, and a barrier to playing it regularly.
So having this chance to play the game was really welcomed.
I like Alhambra, it's a simply game! Collect the different coloured and valued money until you have enough of a particular colour to buy hopefully the tile you want to add to your Alhambra. Naturally there are one or two more rules than that, for example about how you place your tile in your Alhambra. But that gives you the basic gist of the game.
During the game there are three point scoring opportunities. The first two occur at random points, while the third happens at the end when the tiles run out. At these point scoring breaks points are score based on who has the most of a particular colour of building. The two early scoring opportunities can give a false sense of security, that person seemingly not scoring or building can suddenly in the last third of the game close that gap and jump ahead.
This is what exactly happened with card hoarder Jonathan. Boy did he have a lot of cards in his hand. But that final third he built and built, getting a large share of the points in the final scoring. Taking him from hardly any points to challenging for first place.
I liked playing Alhambra a lot. With six players you aren't going to be building massive alhambras, the competition for cards and tiles is fierce, and by the time it comes round to you there is a very good chance of the cards or tile you wanted having been taken. However I thought it played well with this number of players.
Oh and for the record Simon won, I came last! Good job I enjoy the journey! However even though I lost, I still felt in the running right upto the end. And that is the mark of a good game.

After a little chat, and an opportunity for Debbie to make hot beverages for those that wanted one. Well she did volunteer by saying she wanted a cuppa. I just took advantage of it when she voiced that fact.

Our final game of the evening was a return to the table for Colt Express. What more can be said about this game than I have previously said? Colt Express is a visually impressive game sitting there on the table in its 3D glory.

The first round of the game saw me getting shot twice thanks to the special power of Jonathan's character, which meant he couldn't be shot if others were in the same carriage as him. My hand of cards for the next two rounds were watered down by those bullet cards I had been given. Forcing me to at one point skip a turn to draw three new cards so I could have an action to move as my final turn that round.

There was a mini race to the engine to get the briefcase, which I won, beating Jonathan to it. Then a similar mini race happened to get the gems in the next carriage, that also saw Jonathan coming up empty handed.

The final round card we used was from the expansion (not intentionally, but does add a bit more variety), which meant that all those in the same carriage and level got to split the spoils of a briefcase I had looted. This cost me 750 points in the final tally up of our spoils!

Gavin was the run away winner, and although having had to share the points of a briefcase I got a healthy 1500 points, and didn't end up losing.

This sounds so corny and cliched, and gets said after every session. But it's true, this was another great gaming session with great company. The embers of new friendships started, others grew brighter.

 

Mid Week Gaming

Fenland Gamers, game night, tabletop

Wednesday saw me meet up with Mat and Jonathan for a cheeky evening of gaming.

We started off playing The Manhattan Project. This was the first time Mat had played the game, and not to spoil it too much he did really well.

I started off with my predictable first move (especially as the first player) of grabbing an engineer so I could start getting buildings for free.

My board started to build up with buildings to get my engine going. Mat didn't seem to be buying many buildings, but grabbing yellow cake and money. Jonathan was also buying buildings especially one I wanted, which gave three yellow cake for the cheap cost of one worker.

Despite using spies to use the buildings of the others to get stuff I needed, I fell behind on the bomb building side. Jonathan seemed to be pulling ahead on that front. Then bang Mat completed two bombs putting him in the lead and ten points from victory. Ten points which I pointed out to Mat he could get by loading his two bombs onto bombers. Which Mat proceeded to do and get the win.

Mat then shared his winning tactic, he lets Jonathan and I duke it out, and then he comes in, steps over our battered corpses (my words there, Mat was a lot less graphic in his description) to get the win. Are Jonathan and I that competitive, or predictable? It's not something I'm consciously doing. I put it down to seating arrangements, Jonathan sitting opposite me (in front) while Mat is next to me (on my right). So I'm more aware of what Jonathan is doing because he is in front of me, while Mat is out of sight! An interesting theory of Mats which I'm going to have to investigate more.

Our second game of the evening was Colt Express with the time machine car expansion.

I liked what the time machine bought to the game. Not knowing where Jonathan's outlaw was an interesting twist, and added a nice element of surprise, and hidden information.

The last round seemed as Jonathan observed pretty pointless because between all three of us outlaws we had looted all the loot from the carriages, caboose, and engine already in the previous rounds. Mind you I think we were less aggressive towards each other than the previous time Jonathan and I had played the game. Which meant that our plans to nab loot were not interrupted by an unexpected punch or marshal visit as often.

We still had an enjoyable game, and Jonathan grabbed the win, while Mat and I drew for second place or last, depending on your point of view.

Jonathan very kindly gave me a spare copy he had of the promo “patron” (can't remember what they are called) tiles for Splendor.

Another great evening of gaming, thanks guys.

 

Dice, Gems, and Markets

Fenland Gamers, first look, game night, tabletop

Yesterday saw three Fenland Gamers meet up for an afternoon of rolling dice, pushing tokens around, plotting and general cardboard shenanigans.

Amazon had let me down again. Colt Express was meant to have arrived Friday, but it didn't. So after chatting with their support I had an extra month added to my Prime membership as a “gesture of good will” from them for the inconvience, and an assurance the game would be delivered by midday on Saturday so it could be played that afternoon. Guess what? It never showed up. When I contacted support again, was told it was still at the couriers local distribution centre. I wasn't happy. In a fit of rage, I performed the act known as cutting my nose off despite my face, and asked to cancel the order and get a refund, saying I would get it elsewhere.

After getting hot beverages organised, our afternoon of gaming started with the three of us learning the new arrival I had this week Dice City.

So a brief read through of the rules, then we started play. Our first couple of turns saw us fumbling around like new born foals finding their legs. Through out the game questions would crop up for various situations, and the rule book would have to be consulted.

Three turns after getting the catapult I realised I had missed placed the catapult. Basically shutting down my ability to use it, and my main ability to attack bandits.
On the other hand Jonathan's dad had established a really effective engine that got him free army units, and allowed him to get more than enough swords to attack bandits, and build up points that way.
Jonathan was just scoring at will. He was trading, attacking bandits, purchasing. His engine was on fire. The victory points were just piling up for him.
I completed my second row, activated my three deactivated properties, and called the end of the game. It was time to put me out of my misery. There was no way that I'd be able to catch up.
As the final score below shows I wasn't even close to winning. I had made the right call to end my suffering.
Wow. This game took a lot longer than I was expecting. I thought this game would be a quickish game. But it took around two hours. Maybe some of that time was due to the three of us learning the game. But still, there are a surprising amount of decisions to make while its your turn.
I like the fact that there is a mechanism that mitigates the luck of rolling dice. Which is basically being able to move a dice one adjacent position to its left or right. However there are buildings that you can buy that allow you to move a dice to any position on its row.
Surprisingly for a dice game, you need a lot of table space to play. The player boards are massive, plus the space for the various card piles, and tokens, it's not a small game.
I like the fact there are different paths to victory you can take. Ok I didn't do very well executing mine, but Jonathan's dad had the military path pretty well worked out, Jonathan's was fairly successful. In our game there was no attacking the other players buildings. Which would have been a good extension to the military path.
Overall I liked the game, definitely want to get this to the table again.

Our second game of the afternoon was Splendor. Having had the custom playmat made for the game did aid setting up. I didn't have to remember where everything went for starters.

I like Splendor, especially the tokens for the gems. The fact they are poker chips with the relevant image of a gem on is nice. But I just like the tactile feel of these chips. It's hard not to play with them when they are in front of you waiting to be spent.

Although Jonathan managed to attract the first patron, and also take the early lead with a couple of one point cards. I quickly caught up, and pulled ahead, before attracting two patrons. Jonathan did pull back, but by then it was too late I scored the fifteen points to get the win.

Our final game of the session was Istanbul. The tile setup used was the short paths one, with no expansions or promos used. We went this route because this was the first time Jonathan's dad had played the game, and didn't want to over complicate things.

Once again Jonathan won. That's all three games of this I've played so far and he has won all of them. I came second in this game due to the tie breaker rules. Jonathan's dad and I both had three gems, but I had more money than him.

After the game, Jonathan shared his winning tactic for the short paths set up. Which basically meant grabbing the tile power up that allowed him to reroll a die, or change it to the number four. Then visiting the tea house to get money and the gemstone store to buy the gems. And alternating between the two. I must find a way to disrupt this tactic if we play this set up again. Which while writing this I think I have.

A great afternoon gaming, great company.

 

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…

 

Nuclear Bazaar

Fenland Gamers, game night, tabletop

This evening Jonathan and I met up to play some games. Mat should have been there too, but he had to drop out at the last minute due to illness.

The original plan had been for the three of us to play The Manhattan Project (Mat had really wanted to play this game) and Lords of Waterdeep with the Scoundrels of Skullport expansion (Mat and Jonathan were keen to play this).

However with no Mat the plans were in disarray. Well kind of. Jonathan had bought with him Istanbul with the Mocha and Baksheesh expansion, plus the kebab stall tile promo.

We winged our plan of games to play, starting off with The Manhattan Project. For this play through we used the Nations expansion (one and two), used the tile to change the number of bomb attacks down from two to one. This made more sense for a two player game, and the mini bomb placement board for laying out the bomb cards. Oh and naturally the player aid cards were also used.

I really do like the Nations cards, they add a little more theme to the game, give a unique power to each player.

It would be cruel to say that every move we took we said “oh Mat would love this” and we didn't. But Mat would have loved the game.

I managed to ramp up my engine quicker than Jonathan, I had all my workers bought and working for me well before Jonathan. The only real place my system was not very good at generating stuff was generating lots of yellow cake. This meant I had to keep using a main action to get yellow cake, and normally ended up giving Jonathan free yellow cake so I could grab more.

I managed to beat Jonathan to testing a bomb first, which meant I claimed six points for being the first to test a bomb (second in a two player game gets no points) and switched on the higher point total.

Each bomb I made (except the one I was going to test) I loaded onto a bomber. It's a cheap way of getting five points.

I thought this worked really well as a two player game. And I'm not just saying that because I won. Jonathan also enjoyed playing it this way.

Jonathan and I both played in a non aggressive way, I've we didn't attack each other. I think taking that attack slot down to one, would have allowed for a more aggressive game if we had wanted to go down that route. If it had been left at two slots, it would have been just tit for tat on the attacking front. However with just the one slot, it stops that, and the other player has to wait until the slot is free before they can retaliate (if that is what they want to do). It also stops back to back attacks, and being completely destroyed. I'll be interested to hear what others think on this.

But still The Manhattan Project a very very good worker placement game.

Next up Istanbul with the coffee expansion!

Well you know I liked playing Istanbul, not only because I said so in a previous post. But because the game is now in my collection. And I was keen to play the game with the expansion.

We decided on a random board setup, and the kebab stall instead of the fountain.

What can I say about the coffee expansion? I love it. It takes an already great game, and takes it to another level.

I love the new scoring opportunities the expansion gives you with the coffee tokens. Then also being able to block off routes with a log for the other players is also cool. I did this at one point to stop Jonathan from gaining control of the log, blocking his route to the tile where he could wrestle its control from me.

The new cards this expansion introduces are amazingly powerful. However to use one requires using up your whole turn. While also the new power up tiles also pretty powerful. I got one that allowed me to move as far as I liked in a straight line.

The kebab stall was interesting. Apart from allowing you to recall all your agents from around the board, you could also choose to move your relative counter to another tile instead and take the action on the new tile if it wasn't on the police station tile.

I only went to the kebab stall once, and that was because I played one of the new cards, that moved my merchant and agents to the fountain, and allowed me to take an extra turn straight away.

Jonathan won the game six rubies to my five. I hadn't kept an eye on him, and forgot about one of the scoring opportunities, one that gave Jonathan the win. Which was a shame, because I was three turns myself away from getting my final ruby.

I love, love this expansion. You can be sure it will be added to my collection real soon. The new tiles, cards, scoring opportunities, the ability to block routes, and the coffee trader, just brilliant additions to the game.

Once again I liked how this game played for two players. Using the unused merchant counters in the two player game, was a nice touch. These merchants are placed randomly on the board using the dice. If you land on a tile with a merchant on it, just like the multiplayer game play, to do the action on the tile you have to pay two coins (but this time to the bank). Afterwards you then roll the two dice to move the merchant to a new tile.

A great evenings gaming with Jonathan, I had a great time.

 

Black Friday Hopes

news, tabletop

So the countdown to Black Friday is on. A day of shopping madness in the hunt for a bargain that has become part of Americas traditions to take its place alongside their Thanksgiving turkey.

After so long resisting this celebration of consumerism across the pond, in recent years it has been making an appearance over here. Amazon has been making their Black Friday offers available this side of the pond. Which has been great, although last year I didn't find anything in their offerings that interested me.

I've looked through me wishlist on bgg, and thought which of these would I really like and snap up if they appeared on Amazons Black Friday offers. So I whittled that list down to two games that I'm hoping, crossing fingers, touching wood, rubbing a lucky rabbits foot etc will make an appearance on Amazons Black Friday offers.

First up would be Colt Express. It really did impress me that much. Plus I do have a couple of the promo items for it on the way form Germany. So it won't be long before the game joins my collection, it would just be nice to save some money getting it.

This has been on my wish list for a long long time, Room 25 or its follow up Season 2. Imagine a boardgame version of that Doctor Who episode with the orbiting tv station, and those deadly game shows. And them going from one show to another, only to escape, and find out the whole station was a dalek plot. Forget the dalek plot, and space station bit, and you have Room 25 I believe.

So what are you hoping to see on the Amazon Black Friday offers?

 

Inside the Carcassonne Star Wars Box

tabletop

 

There is something satisfying about popping tiles from their spigots, or sticking stickers onto meeples. For me more satisfying than popping bubble wrap.

So I'm glad I had this to do this afternoon for Carcassonne Star Wars. It's that new game thing, where you are popping components, bagging various bits, organising everything. There is a reasoning behind this, having everything organised means faster setup when you come to play the game.

But even without that organising bit you still need to pop that cardboard. And that is soooo satisfying.

It's a shame that when I buy a used game that I'm denied that pleasure, but hey can't have everything especially if it's a hard to get out of print boardgame.

 

Micro Costa Saturday

Fenland Gamers, tabletop

Debbie and Jo kindly joined me at Costa in Wsbech to have a coffee (actually no coffee was consumed! The girls had hot chocolate, while I had my usual chai latte) and play some games.

While we drank our hot beverages, we played our first game Age of War. I like Age of War, it's a nice push your luck dice game. A step up from Roll For It, but not as complicated as Elder Sign.

I like the fact that you are able to steal scoring cards from other players. It's a nice, simple, easy to teach dice game. Jo walked away with an easy win. Sadly for Debbie the dice were not in her favour for this game, and it didn't help when Jo stole her only completed card at the time. Debbie did manage to score another card so that she did have some points on the door at the end of the game.

Our second game was our first play of Deep Sea Adventure. This is a really nice push your luck game from Japan. You are divers diving for treasure. As soon as anyone picks up a treasure the air supply timer starts to count down. Fail to get back to the surface before the air runs out and you have to drop the treasure you are carrying so you can get to the surface and score nothing.

The thing is carrying treasure slows you down! So not only is the air running out but you are not moving as fast either. I like that touch. I also like the fact any dropped treasure falls to the bottom of the sea and and gets added at the bottom of the path you have created for the game.

I really did like this game, it's a really nice. And I'm not saying this just because I won. I was losing until the third and final round.

We finished off with a game of Harbour. I'd played Harbour once before (a few months ago now) so I was semi familiar with the rules. Don't think I did a good job explaining them (that seems to be a thing of mine). One of the things I like about Harbour is the changing market place, which apparently is the thing that Tom Vassel from The Dice Tower doesn't like. It means that while you are trying to get goods to sell to buy a building based on them being worth one rate, that rate instantly changes if some-one else in the meantime buys a building. Which scuppers your plans temporarily. I like that, being able to influence what the other players plans are.

In this game we had a couple of buildings out that for their action allows you to manipulate the market place without buying a building. Which I thought made this game a bit more accessible for first timers, because you could manipulate the market to match the goods you had.

I was on the receiving end of one of these actions near the end of the game. I had six stone, which I was expecting to sell at the top price of five dollars, to allow me to buy the fourth and final building I needed. But Jo went and used one of those manipulate the market buildings and dropped the stone price to be the least possible. This only delayed things for me. I had to wait to Jo to leave that building on her next go, and hope Debbie didn't then use that building. Luckily things went to plan, I was able to put the stone back to the price I needed, and buy my fourth building to trigger the end of the game.

The game was not a hit with the girls. Jo didn't like the game at all, while Debbie was undecided and would need another play to make a decision.

However I'm still the Harbour Master (I did win that first game ages ago too)

A great couple of hours micro gaming girls, thank you.

 

Everything is awful

first look, tabletop

Last night I got a chance to play Gloom for the first time. In Gloom you have to inflict as much misery as possible onto the family you selected to play from the four families available, whilst inflicting happy wondrous things onto the opposing families. Eventually your family members will have suffered enough tragedy in their poor miserable lives that they meet an unpleasant untimely death.

The game ends with the first person who has all their family members die on them. Everyone then scores all their dead family members. The person with the lowest score is the winner!

I enjoyed my first play through of Gloom, despite the less than perfect lighting at the venue which made reading the cards hard.

I really love the transparent cards and layering them on top of a family member to affect the score. I enjoyed coming up with mini stories to explain the playing of the bit of bad luck that was about to befall the chosen family member. Or explaining just how fortunate the other players family members are with their unexpected bit of good luck.

I think Gloom will go down well with the students and the Fenland Gamers. I'm looking forward to playing it with more players.