I wonder how many gamers will be playing Hanabi tonight as part of their fireworks celebrations?
If I was feeling better I'd be using today as an excuse to get Hanabi to the table. There aren't that many games about fireworks, and even fewer in my collection (just this one).
Oh look what arrived today also…
Finally the Dead of Winter iOS app came out on the App Store. Last night to be precise about it.
For 79p of the realm or 99c of that funny money Americans use, you can buy this companion app for the hidden traitor, survival horror game Dead of Winter.
The companion app can be used instead of the crossroads deck of cards in the game. Crossroad cards are events that get triggered if the current player fulfills the cards criteria. However the current player doesn't know what those criteria are, only the player on the right of the current player who drew the card knows them. So the event may or may not get triggered.
The nice thing about the app is that it only presents the information as and when it's needed, which naturally the cards can't do. The place this is a great benefit is when it comes to deciding between the two options available. Players have to make a decision without knowing what the ramifications are. Which is cool, it makes the decision more authentic.
The other great thing about the app is that Eric Summerer from The Dice Tower reads all the flavour text. Eric has this incredibly rich voice that is made for radio and audiobooks, and is a delight to listen to. So your gaming group can be spared the poor attempts at amateur dramatics as the player reads out the flavour text of the crossroads card, trying to should like a Shakespearean actor.
For me this is how apps should be used with board games. If you remember I didn't like the fact that part of the X-Com game relied completely on having the app, no app, no game basically. Where as no Dead of Winter companion app, you can still play the game using the crossroads cards in the game. Having the app will just add to the experience of playing.
So a pretty cool addition for playing Dead of Winter, a must get really I would say.
Oh and for those misguided enough to own an Android device the app for your platform came out last weekend on Halloween.
Last night the Fenland Gamers had a “Halloween” open gaming night. I say it that way because I'm not a Halloween person, I see it as a fake American/commercial pushed “celebration” over here. I know it's a big thing in the US but here? When I was growing up this time of year (I'm going to sound like an old man) the big celebration was November the Fifth, Guy Fawkes Day, penny for the guy etc. Not all this Halloween, dressing up stuff. That is the traditional celebration in the UK for this time of year, not Halloween. Halloween is American, like Apple pie, drive by shootings, racist cops, corporate owned government.
“But Darren, stop being such a spoil sport, it's just a bit of fun”, no it's not, it's a purely commercial thing over here.
Saying that our token gesture if you can describe it as that was a damn amazing, totally awesome mummy minion cake that I had Doreen (a colleagues mum, and my official cake maker) make for us.
Doreen had posted a picture she had seen online just over a month earlier of the cake, and I thought wow I want that cake. So I enquired about getting it made. Yesterday lunch time I drove over to Peterborough to pick up this amazing cake, and stupidly somehow transporting it home broke an arm off!
We opened up the evening playing a new game to everyone, Between Two Cities, a game Jonathan had backed on Kickstarter.
After a coffee/tea and cake break. And let me tell you the cake tasted even more amazing than the cake looked. Everyone really like the cake, the girls and I had the full big slice of cake, while Jonathan and his dad shared a slice.
Break over we broke out Bang the Dice Game. With five players the deputy role was added to the pool of playable roles. The deputy basically is there to help keep the Sheriff alive, and help defeat the renegade and outlaws.
Jonathan's dad was the Sheriff in the first game and his first time playing. He got a nice character card to go with being the Sheriff, the one that when another player does damage to him, that player takes an arrow. I too got a good character card to go with being the deputy. Mine allowed me to heal any player by one health at the start of my turn. I don't think the forces of good could have had better card draw really. But would the dice be favourable?
The Sheriff and I in the end won the game. But at one point there was some doubt about who the deputy was by the Sheriff. Luckily the main sower of that doubt Jonathan managed to get killed in an Indian attack.
The second game saw Jo as the Sheriff with the character I had in the first game. I had been dealt the deputy again. But sadly I got knocked out early by Jonathan's dad who it would turn out was an outlaw. So I was unable to help/protect the Sheriff. It soon came down to a show down between Jo the Sheriff and Jonathan's dad the outlaw. Who would the dice favour?
The odds looked in favour of the outlaw, who had the character that was allowed to reroll the dynamite dice. With the dice on the rerolls being kind to him was allowing him to land some serious damage on Jo. Luckily the dice were being just as favourable to Jo and allowing her to heal and land damage on the outlaw.
The game came down to who was going to be able to survive the impending Indian attack. Jonathan's dad had more arrows in front of him than health, while Jo too was in a similar position. On Jo's turn, with her ability and two beer dice she was able to survive the final arrow from the middle she had just rolled. The Indians killed the outlaw, wounded the Sheriff leaving her to fight another day and get the win.
This had been a very exciting showdown between grandfather and granddaughter.
Next up on the evenings gaming menu, Machi Koro.
I was the only one who had played Machi Koro before (twice if my memory hasn't failed me), and embarrassingly I had forgotten the win condition! So while I setup the game, Jonathan quickly checked the rules for the supine condition. How could I forget it's completing the four landmarks? Doh!
As you can see in the photos above we used the official playmat for the game that I picked up from the UK Games Expo earlier in the year. Machi Koro is pretty easy to explain the rules of, so an ideal game for none gamers to be introduced to. We were playing the base game, however with five players we used the fifth player cards that come with the Harbour expansion (that's the only part of the Harbour expansion we used, must get round to using the Harbour and Millionaires expansions). We also used the Mega Game Store promo, and I replaced the normal Mines card with the promo Diamines version of it (only difference is the name of card and slightly different art work).
I tried a new tactic for me in this game, and went for the more expensive landmark cards early, thinking I had struggled previously to get the money to complete them in the later part of the game when everyone's engines were in full swing, and reasoned it would be easier to complete the four cost landmark (can't remember it's name) last. The drawback of this was I couldn't roll two dice, so I avoided buying buildings that relied on rolling a score higher than six. The knock on effect of this tactic was I wasn't also putting money into the others pocket by triggering the higher number buildings that give lots of credits when triggered.
Fives and threes were getting me good economy in this game, mainly because the dice rolled by the others worked in my favour. Would this tactic have worked if the dice had not been so kind? I don't think so, I would have struggled big time. The dice can give and the dice can take away.
So with me talking so much on my tactic this game, how did I do? I won. But everyone liked the game, so I think I should be able to get this to the table again, maybe with the Harbour expansion and it's different setup.
Finally the evening was finished off with a game of Ark of Covenent.
Ark of the Covenent is a Carcassonne game with a biblical theme. Jonathan described this variant as the best version of the base Carcassonne game. Apparently this is a hard game to get hold of, and we were playing a German copy of the game. Which lets face it makes little difference with Carcassonne because there is no text on the tiles, so as long as you can get an english copy of the rules you are good to go.
Now I love Carcassonne, I play it all the time on my iPad online with an opponent I've been playing for years now (I get regularly beaten but still go back for more). I can't remember when I last played just the base game, we usually play with the following expansions Inns and Cathedrals, Traders and Builders, The Princess and The Dragon, and The River. And when I play the physical version these are usually the expansions I play with also.
He is a description of the differences from the base game taken from BGG:
“New features compared to Carcassonne include oases along roads which award 1 additional point to that road for each oasis, a one-time use “prophet” for each player which doubles the value of a completed city for that player, a simplified field scoring with each sheep in the field adding 2 points and each wolf subtracting 2 points, and a new scoring mechanism for temples. Additionally, players can forgo the placement of a follower on the board to move the Ark around the tiles and award 1 point to the owner of each follower it passes.“
I enjoyed playing this version of Carcassonne, Jonathan pimping out the game by replacing the cardboard Ark token with the Ark counter from the Indiana Jones Monopoly game was a nice touch.
I liked the simplified field scoring, and the tactical element added of using wolfs to reduce an opponents scoring of the fields with their careful placing. The temple scoring mechanism was interesting and added a little area control.
Jonathan's Dad and I won the game by ending up with the same winning score. Which I was nearly denied when Jonthan missed off six points for me by incorrectly adding upto two of my fields. Phew good job I spotted that. However it's an easy thing to do, and I have to admit the app does make me lazy on that front by doing all the work for you. I'd have to be constantly referring to the scoring summary if I was to play the physical version.
So does Ark of the Covenent live up to the claim made by Jonathan? I've not played other base game variants so comparing it to the vanilla game, is there enough there to justify the claim? Hmmm I'm not sure. It's certainly an easier game to score for beginners. And I certainly enjoyed playing the game, it's Carcassonne what's not to enjoy? So for me on that claim the jury is still out.
I think the joint victory was a great way to end another great evening of gaming.
This evening Jonathan, Debbie, Jo, Jonathan's Dad, and myself got together to play the worker placement game Brew Crafters. Where we play as brewers trying to build the best brewery in the city.
I'd never played Brew Crafters before, while the others had played it once or twice previously. However it was pretty easy to pick up.
My tactic for the game was to try and keep developing a seven repetation point local brew, and make sure I had enough money at the end of each of the three winter stage to pay for my resources. I did manage to get three of those seven pointers. During the second year I spent a couple of turns trying to bloke Jonathan getting enough money to pay for his brewery resources, and force him to take out loans to pay for them. This would have forced negative points onto him. However Jonathan managed to get just enough money to avoid having to take out loans to pay for stuff.
The final scores on the doors…
As you can see it was pretty close in the middle.
I enjoyed playing Brew Crafters, the theme comes across really well in the game. I like the two stage mechanic of each season. Sending workers to the market to get get resources, like hops and malt etc, followed by then choosing a production action like make a brew, or do research. And then you could also collaborate on a brew too to gain extra money and repetation points.
So another great evening of gaming, can't wait for the next gaming session. Oh wait that's tomorrow…
I hit Chatteris at nine, an hour before the store opened. So I found a really nice little coffee shop, had a rather nice cheese and ham omlette with a latte for breakfast. The cake also looked very very tempting, but I resisted (shocking I know).
But even after having breakfast there was still time to kill before The Hobbit Hole opened. So I did some window shopping of the shop. It was at this point I spotted a copy of Magic the Gathering Arena of the Planeswalker on the shops shelves!
This visit was going to be more expensive than I had planned.
Every time I've been to The Hobbit Hole it has always been welcoming. The owner opened up the store a little early for me, when they saw me outside. Which with the crap weather outside was much appreciated.
As my purchases were being put through, the owners seven (I think) year old daughter came down and started to distract her mum. So I asked her if she played games with her mum and dad, and what her favourite was. The little girl went straight over to a table in the middle of the store with Seven Wonders on it and said this. She had been playing it all week since they had got the game in.
The little girl then said she was going to ask if I wanted to play Seven Wonders. So after paying for my stash of gaming goodness, the three of us sat down to play a game of Seven Wonders, with the daughter called Sam in her pink Disney princess dress teaching us both how to play, because her mum had not played the game before.
It was pretty cool being taught by one so young. Apparently Sam also plays Magic, and participates in the Friday Night Magic stuff.
Sam royally thrashed both her mum and I at the game.
This was definitely a pleasant turn of events for the day. Seven Wonders is one of the games I have wanted to try, and I thought my first opportunity would be at the demo/tournament day that is going to be held at The Hobbit Hole mid November. I'm still going to the demo day, but now I know I'll have a good time. I just hope I don't have to face Sam in the tournament, my money is on her to win it
I had always said I'll not touch Magic with a barge pole. The whole CCG thing wasn't for me. It's a money pit, especially if you want to be competitive. It's one of the reasons I like the LCG format.
However I do enjoy watching the Spellslingers show on Geek 'n Sundry when they show it, which is a Magic the Gathering show. Plus when it was announced that Heroscape was finally getting re-released in the form of Magic the Gathering Arena of the Planeswalkers, I thought cool I've wanted to try Heroscape but it's another one of those games that's out of print and goes for silly money.
So temptation in my way I was going to cave and get the Heroscape update with the Magic theming.
So why did I buy an intro Magic deck? I thought I can be a casual player, I can handle it. I'll just dip my toe in the water. It will help me get more into the theme of Arena of the Planeswalkers. That's the thought process of this addict anyway.
Below the stuff I actually visited The Hobbit Hole for.
Then finally the latest volume of The a Walking Dead graphic novel dropped through the door. So my weekend reading has been arranged.
So yesterday my order from BGG arrived. The order consisted of the promo character cards for Pandemic, plastic brains counters and the Joker promo cad for the DC Deckbuilding game.
The Pandemic character cards behave “slighty” differently from the regular character cards for the game. Here is the description of the cards from the BGG store:
“Each card is double-sided, meaning there are four roles included, two of which you can use in any given game.
Card 1: Epidemiologist and Operations Expert
Card 2: Generalist and Medic
The key difference with these promo characters is they lose health when cubes are added to the city they are in, or if the city they are in outbreaks. If all four health of a promo character is ever exhausted, the players lose the game. This increases the difficulty of the game.“
It seems an interesting twist for playing the game. I look forward to playing with them.
Now the Joker promo is interesting! Because I don't have the DC Deckbuilding game, and I have no intention of buying it. When I tried the game I didn't like it at all, it is far far inferior to the Marvel Legendary game. So why get this promo? I'm a fan of the Joker. So had to get it really.
So the brains were bought for one reason. That was to pimp out Zombie Dice. So instead of using a scrap of paper or the official score pad to track players scores, I will now use these brains instead. Which I think is really thematic for the game and a lot more fun.
Last night saw another Fenland Gamer mid week get together. While waiting for Mat to turn up, the evening started off with four of us playing…
I've been wanting to play this game for a while. I have three copies of the game! Ok there is a reason for this, but I'll get to that in a minute or two.
With four players, Bang the Dice Game has a sherif, two outlaws and a renegade. I've pimped out the game with the Lego Minifig Sherif figure that goes to whoever has the sherif card. This is the only known role in the game, the others are all hidden, and each has their own win condition.
So as one of the hidden roles you have to work out who is on your side and who isn't. While the sherif knows everyone is out to get them, they have the “easier” task, stay alive, kill the others.
We played the game that whoever was the sherif last got to shuffle and deal out the four role cards next game. Which meant somehow Debbie kept getting the sherif card from the second game onwards. But to be fair Debbie did win as the sherif.
Most of the games I was an outlaw, and as an outlaw won a couple of games with my fellow outlaw. The one game I was a renegade I was eliminated very quickly. But boy when you have to chose between two players to shoot, not sure if they are on your side or not. Wow! Tense.
I really enjoyed playing this game, the others enjoyed it also. Now this is a quick game to teach, learn and play. Although with more players (up to eight) it would take a little longer to play. But the important part for me was how easy it was to teach and learn, plus the number of players it supports.
As regular long time readers will know I use board games with my students in induction week, and at other special times. Student favourites are games such as Love Letter, Munchkin and Resistance. My class size can be upto twenty four students. So I need multiple copies of a game for use in class. With Bang the Dice game supporting three to eight players, it means I only need three copies of the game to use in class. And definitely this game will be seeing some class time.
It would have been nice to have got the Walking Dead themed version of the game (especially for Saturday), however it seems out of print at the moment and more expensive than its rrp. So I'm going to have to wait for it hopefully to get reprinted. I think my students would enjoy the Walking Dead theme a lot.
With Mat arriving we finished our current game of Bang the Dice Game, and the girls got to choose the next game we played.
At last I have finally got to play this game. It is part of my collection, but something I've not gotten to play yet. This evening we were playing with Jonathan's copy. The hardest decision was which map/scenario to play, mainly because Jonathan has all the expansions. It was decided by the girls (I think) to do the submarine scenario, and with advanced rules (which iirc none of the others had played before, well we know I hadn't).
Jo started off the game by going first, so by the time it got to my turn I had a good idea of what I was doing. Our tactics for the scenario had us split into two, one team taking the left side of the sub (sorry no nautical terminology here) and the other the right side of the sub.
It seemed to be a semi successful tactic, we rescued victims, some lucky rolls of the dice put one or two victims straight in the safe zone, but the rolls for fire didn't go our way.
We ultimately lost the game, but it came close to the wire, we nearly completed the scenario by rescuing seven victims. It was a damaged piece of machinery from the fire that ultimately cost us the game.
I enjoyed my first game a lot, and can't wait to play more games and scenarios. Maybe Lego Minifig firemen next time?
It was the boys turn to choose…
So a game of TEG with its maximum number of players, it was going to be interesting to see how the game went.
This was Mats first time playing the game, so a quick explanation of the game was given. Maybe too quick. However I started the game so Mat could observe a couple of goes before his.
Jo was as usual making head way on developing her empire, and colonising planets. I think I was the last player to upgrade their empire. Which definitely put me at a disadvantage on the available actions front for a few turns.
Jo could have triggered the end game and maybe have won the game, but a wrong decision on what was to be her last turn, gave Mat the window to get to twenty one points and trigger the end of the game. Debbie and Jonathan took their last goes. This was to prove a game winning last go for Jonathan, who managed to colonise a final planet and get enough points to get the win.
Mat was unsure of his first game, and thought he needs another game to decide. I partially blame myself being a poor teacher for this.
I enjoyed playing TEG with five players, there is more competition for planets. With the ability to follow another players action, you are semi engaged when it's another players turn. Which cuts down on the downtime a little between turns.
The evening finished off with a quick, light game of…
I don't think I've won a game of zombie dice yet, and last nights game kept that losing streak going. The brains as scoring tokens added to the game I thought. And was a nice light, fun way to end an enjoyable evening of gaming with great company.
So Brew Crafters to look forward to playing for the first time on Friday, followed by an open gaming session on Saturday (which will have cake!).
Since I've got into gaming as a hobby (about three years now) I've had two grail games.
What is a grail game? A grail game as far as I understand it is a game that you really really want that usually is out of print (but doesn't have to be), usually expensive (hey if it's out of print you can be goddam sure that the eBay scalpers will be taking advantage of that fact) and naturally potentially hard to find.
The first grail game of mine was Space Hulk. Until last year there had been three editions of the game, all of them going for well over a hundred quid on eBay. I'd played Space Hulk years ago and this two player game that was basically Aliens the movie on the tabletop in all but name. And was a game I really wanted so I could play it with Nath. But did I really want it at the high prices it was commanding?
The prices on eBay had been acting as a pretty good deterrent from purchasing the game. Could I justify spending that much money on a game? Then just as I was about to crack and cave in Games Workshop amazingly announced a limited reprint of the game. It was still going to be expensive but considerably less so than the eBay scalpers had been charging.
My second grail game is Starcraft the boardgame. This was an instant add to my list as a grail game as soon as I found out of its existence. Starcraft is out of print, so naturally it commands high prices on eBay. Vasel's Law states if a game is really great it won't stay out of print. However I think because of licensing I can't see this strategy game being reprinted anytime soon.
Now I haven't played Starcraft the boardgame before, however I am a fan of the video game series. So when I did see this existed and looked at the bgg page and photos, it looked really good, and instantly appealed to me.
This Friday (payday) I will be completing a deal that nets me this grail game for a great price. The box apparently has a little water damage (which is how the seller got the game). I'm lucky that the seller was kind enough to wait until the end of the month. So I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this.
I know have a new grail game on the list too, and that is Glen More thanks to Mat at the Fenland Gamers group. Yes another game out of print, and yes eBay fleecers are selling it for a high price. But I may have to settle for just owning the space themed reprint that will be hitting Kickstarter next month.
But who knows maybe I'll get lucky and get a copy of Glen More. When it comes to getting those grail games patience is most definitely a virtue, along with deep pockets.
What grail games do you have on your list?
After a quick explanation of the rules and talking them both through a couple of turns, Nath and his girlfriend had the game down. This is the second time I've played the game, and I have to say I'm loving it. There was some nice tit for tat interactions using planet abilities to foil the plans of each other.
Once again Nath walked away with a convincing victory. Nath and his girlfriend both liked the game. One comment made by her was it was “complicated but fun”. Which is interesting because she is a none hobby gamer, whose previous experience of games are the mainstream offerings. So between Nath teaching his girlfriend Star Realms yesterday, and now going straight into Tiny Epic Galaxies, I think she is experiencing a new view of what board games are.
We finished the mini gaming session with me introducing Batman Love Letter to Nath and his girlfriend. This was a blast with me knocking Nath out first card by playing a Batman and guessing his card on a turn one. His girlfriend forgetting which card I had after just exchanging cards with me. Or me forgetting I had played Harley Quinn a couple of turns earlier when guessing Nath's card and naming her!
However Nath funny enough didn't enjoy this game as much because his winning streak came to an end, with his girlfriend winning the game.
I left Nath this copy of Batman Love Letter so that they can play it also while I'm not there.
This was a fun little gaming session with Nath and his girlfriend. It was a pleasure meeting Nath's girlfriend for the first time. She's also a Marvel Geek! Now maybe Nath will have to watch the excellent Daredevil on Netflix. She did say she was going to force him to.
Today there was an update from Modiphius about the Kickstarter Thunderbirds game.
“Hi all, Thunderbirds is right now unloading at the UK warehouse, I'm going to assume a day unpacking 13 pallets so expect boxes to start shipping out tomorrow!”
So touch wood, cross fingers and other good luck mumbo jumbo the game could be with me before I go visit Nath. But how cool would that be all new game weekend with Nath? Ok there are still a load of games we haven't played.
With less than eleven hours to completion The Others 7 Sins will be funding (just short of $1.3million raised so far). This Eric Lang game published by Cool Mini Or Not looks amazing. There are a shed load of stretch goal extras coming with the game. Backing this game has stopped me being able to pick up a Kickstarter copy of Blood Rage the current Eric Lang hit game from the Facebook trading and selling page I follow.
Plus if your pockets are deep enough a load of expansions can also be ordered at the same time. My pockets are just about able to stretch to getting the two Kickstarter exclusive expansions. Although I'm hoping that by the time they launch the pledge manager I'll have some extra cash to add one or two more expansions to my order.
So here is what you get for your money at the moment, if I remember there is more stuff not on this picture.
Yesterday I put the call out on social media to see if anyone wanted to meet up today at the local Costa to play Tiny Epic Galaxies. Luckily this time I wasn't Billy no mates, and Jo and Debbie said they would meet up with me to play the game.
I had managed to grab a table at the busy Costa ready for Debbie and Jo to arrive. I had my usual Costa tipple a Chai Latte. When the girls arrived I got them a hot chocolate. So technically the title of this blog isn't entirely accurate.
With our beverages sorted we set up Tiny Epic Galaxies. I explained the basics of the game and we started playing.
As we played we discussed options on each other's go. I think this helped with the learning curve.
Despite efforts to try and slow her down using one of the powers of a planet I had colonised, which was paying two power to move two enemy ships minus one position each, Jo still managed to get to the required 21 points to trigger the end of the game.
Thanks to Debbie and Jo for being great gaming companions. I had a great time playing the games in Costa , even with me not winning a single game!
Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy app