Yesterday ended up being a binge tv day. Amazon Prime had just put up Season 3 of the excellent series they produce The Man in the High Castle. Which is based on the Philip K. Dick book of the same name.

I’ve never read the book, so I’ve no idea if they have gone beyond the book now, if they are still within the plot of the book, or even if they have deviated from the book much. However I am a fan of his book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and the movie that was based on that. Plus I loved A Scanner Darkly (another one I hadn’t read the book for).

So when Amazon released The Man in the High Castle just the source material had me interested. Then the synopsis got me really interested. The whole alternate history thing I love. The what if? For this book/series the premise is the Germans and Japanese won the Second World War. America has been split by the two victors. But it’s an uneasy peace, the threat of war between the two bubbling underneath. Against this backdrop you have these films turning up mysteriously showing a world where the Germans and Japanese lost the war. These are all linked to The Man in the High Castle, and a kind of resistance movement.

I’m really enjoying the series, good acting, not bad effects for tv these days. The story has now introduced multiverses, and a plot of multiverse domination by the Germans. Can’t wait for series 4.

Naturally you were expecting me to be writing about the no holds barred Commander game. But that fell through. Crowded social calendar meant that the others who had planned to take part couldn’t. Luckily I knew Friday evening, and hadn’t driven for an hour, and sat around looking like Billy no mates at the library.

So in a moment of boredom I decided to recreate visually what Zo-Zu the Commander of my mono red mass land hate deck thought the real reason was.

I did see on icv2 a news story about an interesting expansion for Catan. This one is for charity and is educational! The charity being supported is the Global Crop Diversity Trust and the expansion is called the Catan Crop Trust Scenario kit.

“But in this semi-cooperative scenario, players must balance the needs of the future against their immediate plans by working with the other players to store and preserve seeds.  If players overharvest, they risk damage to the environment, possibly causing a collapse of the food supply.”

Sounds really interesting. Apparently it’s big introduction to the world will be at Essen. I’m gobsmacked they didn’t chose Tabletop Gaming Live last weekend for that! That’s sarcasm folks.

But I like the sound of this, and has now jumped on to my wishlist.

One of the Gencon hot games to actually make it to the Tabletop Gaming Live event was Keyforge.

Luckily for the number of visitors at the show FFG/Asmodee got the number of demo games about right.

I got to play 2 games one on the Saturday against a stranger, and one on the Sunday against Diego.

For me it was certainly a tale of 2 experiences.

On the Saturday I found the game a frustrating experience. I really didn’t grok what the deck was trying to do, and so was playing less than optimally with that deck.

Although in the game I lost 3-0, I was ready to claim my first key (way too late) when my opponent claimed their third and final key, which I was powerless to stop.

The game against Diego I clicked with the deck and got what it was trying to do. And was able to take the win after Diego taking an early lead.

It felt odd that I could have creatures out and not do anything with them if my opponent had no creatures out. Well unless there was an ability or reap action on the card I could use.

The games went on longer than expected. I thought they would be like a 20 minute game, but I pretty sure both games were in the 40 minute plus bracket. I’m not sure this can be entirely explained away with us learning as we played.

I think having played the game your experience will vary depending on the deck you have, and how quickly you get what the deck is trying to do. Multiple plays are definitely required with a deck. But at what point do you declare that a deck is just not fun for you?

It was nice to play. A tad over hyped I think. I can see myself grabbing a deck. I just don’t see it now as being a MtG killer, or serious competition for my playing time. I think this will join the rank of fringe card games in the lcg/ccg arena. There will be some that play it, may be a thriving London scene for a while, but like Destiny, Ashes, Dicemasters and others, it will burn brightly for a brief period, then die out nearly as quickly as it appeared. Leaving behind these small hardcore players that swear blind the game isn’t dead, it’s resting (the dead parrot sketch was written for Ashes fans).

Where to start?

This is probably going to be a long one. So you might just want to go off and make a brew a first.

Right, back? Sitting comfortably? I’ll begin…

The TL;DR or for us older folks, the bottom line, headline is it was ok at best. The word I’d use to describe it is meh.

Let’s first look at how the show was marketed to the public. Back when they first announced it, the justification by the magazine and its publisher for having the show at the end of September was it was between Gencon and Essen. So you would get to see all the Gencon hotness and maybe early Essen stuff. This was a great justification, should pull in the crowds, and distinguish it from UKGE a bit. If I have one complaint about UKGE is that it gets very few big game announcements or previews. These are saved for the top 3 conventions (Origins, Gencon and Essen). I think on this front that the show failed to deliver. It had Keyforge, which was probably the biggest game to come out of Gencon, and there was enough space to meet the demand to play it. I didn’t notice lots of people having to wait to get a game, there seemed a constant flow of games. But I’ll come back to this because I’m starting to touch on another point of mine.

Continuing on the marketing theme. The show seemed to be like a super secret people weren’t aware of. Yes on the publishers social media and the magazine they were pushing it. But thats a small subset of the gaming community in the UK. I did hear that there were ads on bgg, but thats not something I saw. So it’s not surprising that attendance seemed, ok was low. Hardly anyone knew they show was on. Some only found out days before when threads on facebook groups started asking who is going?

The show had a lack of identity in my opinion. The banner at the entrance to Alexandra Palace was tiny, and easily missed. In side there was a lone sad Pandemic photo thingy, where you could poke your face through the hole and seem like you were one of the specialists in the game. That was the only hint you were queueing up for a board game expo. Then the walk from where they collected/checked your ticket to the show space nothing, it could have been a dentist convention. There should have been banners and standees all over the place advertising the show, and board games.

Support by publishers seemed a little none committal. Apart from the big Keyforge banners/posters you had no real idea it was the FFG stand, same for the Asmodee one.

As the above photo shows, FFG couldn’t even be bothered to get out the nice terrain they used at UKGE for Star Wars:Legion. Other rival skirmish games had some nice terrain set up to show off their games. Which really surprised me when FFG with their flagship miniatures game didn’t. I know that the cost of having table space at this show was more costly than UKGE, so this would have been a costly marketing exercise for them. Maybe they are waiting to see how the show shapes out before going to the expense of purchasing special show specific branding.

On the expense side with the low footfall, I was hearing that some of the retailers were not making costs, and there was a little resentment directed towards one or two retailers that were undercutting the rest. I could illustrate this with Forbidden Sky, it was on sale from various vendors from between £27 and £35. Great for us punters looking to save the odd pound here and there. But if you are trying to at least cover your expenses for being at the show, not great news.

It wasn’t a big show. Lots of space to grow. But without doing any demos you could see everything in 30 minutes max. Now for us punters the low turn out of visitors worked in our favour. No fighting through crowds to get to stands to see what was on offer, you got time to chat with exhibitors, and it was easy to get a demo of a game (most of the time). Plus it was not crowded, and you weren’t being shoved around while walking around the uncrowded aisles.

There was a reason why the open gaming area was like this photo below a lot of the time.

Most of the people were instead out on the stands getting demos. Great for the publishers.

Which reminds me one or two of the demos could have been managed better. We waited over 2 hours to get a game of Pandemic Fall of Rome. Mainly because a group of wanna be youtubers wanted to play the complete game, analysing every move and card as they went along. If they weren’t oblivious to the none discreet loud sarcastic hints about finishing up then they were being bloody minded and downright inconsiderate to all the others wanting to try the only copy of the game. A bit more balls from the person running the demo would have also avoided this unpleasant experience and allowed more people to try the game.

Wildlands was by appointment only. Found out after the show there was a copy along with The River sitting unplayed in the tiny games library in the open gaming area! Wish Osprey had pointed this out, I could have tried the game (none of the Sunday slots were at a convent time). and our group would have definitely jumped on playing The River.

The seminars suffered from the same problem as UKGE in 2017. Over loud annoying tannoy messages.

Oh food at the place was as expected average and expensive. £9 for fish and chips, chips alone £3. The pulled bbq meat stall £6.50 for a bun/roll with not a very generous serving of meat.

But they did do something right. Well partially. It was a nice touch having the shuttle bus from the expo to Wood Green tube station. Wish we’d known about it Saturday morning, would have saved our group a bus fair and uphill walk (I’m so unfit these days). And that is the down side of this great idea. We found out about it after we had arrived at the expo. A friend asked about it at the tube station and no officials there knew anything about it. But the receptionist at the Travelodge did!

I liked the location (despite it being London). And Wood Green had lots to do out side the show. Apparently there was a board game cafe there (the show organisers and them should have been promoting it I think) which we only found out about too late on the Sunday. But there were plenty of places to get food from, two cinemas. And free parking at the Travelodge and really helpful staff there.

I’d gone to the show not knowing what to expect. I came away feeling disappointed. Two days there was too long in it’s current state. If I come back to a possible second show next year it will be for only the day. I feel a bit cheated on the whole “get to see the Gencon hotness”. This felt like a trial run for a real show. A testing of the waters. There are a lot of things that need improving hopefully the publishers after show rap up will not have rose tinted glasses and see the faults (which are fixable) and make the necessary changes to give us in the UK a much needed second great board gaming show.

The second and last day of the expo where I once more collect the photos that spammed my social media into collages.

Naturally there were stands at the inaugural Tabletop Gaming Live where you could hand over pieces of paper in exchange for pieces of plastic, cardboard and neoprene.

I thought this was a fair deal so participated in this “commerce”.

So for a bargain £3 I picked up a neoprene folding dice tray. Great for carrying around. I’ll be using this one at our D&D sessions. And yes for those that backpack these are just like those folding plates and bowls (in plastic) that we can get.

On one of the minis stands there was a nice little collection of figures that could be used as an instant squad in Last Days, so I picked that up.

Seeing as my main building will be a derelict farm house to start with when I eventually get to playing Last Days (that moment is getting closer), I stumbled across some damaged/derelict wall to use with it.

Then I got some more stuff to cover the bases of minis with. Which will aid me in visually distinguishing which Zombies belong to which set in Zombicide. At the moment I’m using grass with the base set models.

I’ve not bought a tape measure yet. But I do have one of those laser things now for checking line of sight.

Osprey had the new expansion for The Lost Expedition for sale The Fountain of Youth so I had to get that. In conversation with one of them on the stand it was revealed that there is an expansion for Last Days in the works that will be new campaigns/scenarios.

A friend asked me to get him the £5 goodie bag from the Tabletop Gaming magazine stand. Which I managed to do. Despite not officially being allowed to do so it would transpire when Jonathan tried to buy one.

Targi has been on my list of games to get at some point. So when I saw on a sellers shelf and the price, I snapped it up.

Also got a 3ft by 3ft neoprene playmat to use with Last Days. I went with a muddy grass pattern. Which I thought would work well with wood land settings, or farm settings. Particularly now I have that derelict farm building to make.

Oh and some poorly written magazine.

Sunday Haul

As you can see I got some plastic scenic stuff to add character to the derelict farmhouse. They didn’t have the dead body pack I was looking for. Plus I got another one of the neoprene folding playmates.

So Sunday was a lot lighter on my pocket.

This post is just going to be a photo post collecting photos taken throughout the day.

I’ll write a thoughts post when I get back home.

I’m really excited about this post. Scythe is my favourite game of all time. I came to that conclusion after I did over ten thousand paired comparison tests of games in my game collection that I had played. It was a very exhausting process, and one that I plan to repeat next year.

But this post isn’t about how I came to the conclusion that Scythe is my favourite game of all time. It’s about me getting my grubby digital mits on some exclusive previews of four Encounter cards for an up and coming Scythe related thing. I believe there will be an announcement in the near future about what it is.

When I first saw these Encounter cards I spent minutes just enjoying the art. Just taking in how stunning the images were. And it is stunning.

I have to admit when I was looking at the options on each of the encounter cards I will be sharing with you the Magic player in me kicked in. I started evaluating the choices like I would the abilities of a Planeswalker. And in some ways you can look at these options as the Encounter equivalents.

So let’s have a look at the first of these encounter cards that the Stonemaier Games deep throat sent me to share with the world.

I’m such a fan of the art in Scythe. But this cards art is just so gorgeous. Seeing it for the first time I thought this was reminiscent of the scenes in the Force Awakens on Jakku with the crashed Star Destroyer half buried in the sand dunes. For me this is almost the cold weather version. The crashed half buried dreadnought dwarfing everything around it. Love it.

The options you have on this encounter are pretty cool. I definitely think the rescue option will be selected the most. The match one is very situational, and board state dependent. You don’t want to leave resources unclaimed ready for others to swoop in and take. So I can see that being the least selected option. The taking the credit option is a nice quick shot of power with a possible nice little benefit.

I’m not sure about Eastern European mountains, this art on Encounter 49 made me think of Scotland or the Lakes, and how beautiful they are in Winter. In fact it made me long to get back out on the hills and enjoying the amazing mountains we have. I just love it.

The reveal card option, I’m happy to take that gamble to gain power. It’s a very Magic the Gathering thing to do. I can’t remember specific cards, but there are a few out there where you are revealing the top card to gain health or do damage in a similar style. I actually like the middle option, it’s enough to push you into a higher scoring zone, or give you that final push to score the popularity star. Oh and that final option that’s removal, I like removal. That could remove a threat from another player who is in a position to attack, or it could set up your next turn for you to move into the now free space.

If I had to say maybe my least favourite art of the four cards, but it is still pretty cool. I’m kinda reminded of Constable and his work, or those early black and white photos of old time farming.

I’m in two minds about the first option. I like it, and the idea of getting another shot of drawing an encounter card. And if I was playing Rusviet I’d love this because getting to the Encounter token again would be real easy. But I don’t like the idea of leaving it there for others to nab. The middle option I do like a lot. It has the flexibility to be very very useful depending on board state at the time you chose which is the best token to move. And OMG that last ability. Warp to an empty spot on the board basically, and it doesn’t cost me anything to do!

This final Encounter card is so Magic the Gathering and Red.

For the last time lets look at the art. It’s different from the rest that we have seen. There are no mechs, no dreadnaughts. However it still manages to have that 1920’s alt history feel to it. It has an almost cinematic stand off feel to it. You feel that this would not be out of place in a movie trailer. It’s such a classic shot.

The first option for me is classic red in Magic the Gathering, card draw and then having to discard a card. I think that the bribe option is also red, it has it’s price, and you get a great benefit, it’s just random. It’s that chaotic, randomness that gives it the red feel. That last ability. That could be your last star to trigger the end of the game. The end of game out of nowhere. What a great surprise. It’s definitely a mid to late game option.

I know I kept making the Magic the Gathering comparisons when looking at the Encounters. But there has definitely been an influence here, and a positive one I think. There are some great options on these Encounter cards, naturally some fit certain tactics and factions better than others. But there are at least two options on each Encounter here that I would like to play if I drew that card. You can’t ask more than that really without seeming greedy. But if you are Polania where you can select 2 options per encounter card, choosing the first option pays for the third in more than one of the cases on the Encounters above. That’s a nice synergy.

There you have it four new Encounter cards that we will be getting our hands on. I can’t wait to be shuffling these into the Encounter deck and drawing one of them. I hope that I have done the cards justice, and not waffled too much, been too pretentious. You’ve read my thoughts on the cards. But which is your favourite? What do you think of them? Let me know in the comments below (if you haven’t commented before I will need to approve your comment, then you are golden after that to comment freely whenever. Sadly spam forces these sort of measures on me.)

It’s been quiet on here the past week, not much gaming going on. I’ve started painting another wave of Zombicide minis. Which I’ll share the final results of on here, but the actual photos of my progress whilst painting them will be shared on Instagram. Otherwise I think you would start to get pretty bored.

But with approx 20 painted zombies I have enough to use with the Last Days skirmish rules. I have the mdf tokens, waiting for some range rulers to arrive. I have some unpainted cars (apparently I can find tutorials on painting realistic windows!). I’m hoping to pick up some buildings and a playmat next weekend. I just need to build some squads (and paint them) from the Zombicide survivors and find someone to play with.

There was the Magic Openhouse last weekend, and I went along to my FLGS to participate. I went with the black Welcome deck this time, and ended up Black/Green or Golgari if we are using the Ravnica guilds.

Which is convenient because I was planning to go with that combo for the upcoming store championship. It will be a newish deck for me. You may remember I had a mono black aggro standard deck that I built. Well a few of the cards are rotating out with the release of Guilds of Ravnica. So I thought I’d splash some green, with Llanowar Elves, Steal Leaf Champion, Ghalta, and if I’m real lucky with my pulls one or two of Assassin’s Trophy (hottest card in the upcoming set I believe).

I’m sadly going to miss the Prerelease this weekend because I’m going to the inaugural Tabletop Gaming Live expo in London. Which means I’m hopefully going to get to try Keyforge. I think the FFG stand will be very popular because of this, so I may have to fight my way through to a table to try it.

While at my FLGS they did have a 28mm mdf derelict building that looked perfect for Last Days. So I’ll be picking that up next time I’m there throwing money at the store owner.

Tiny Epic Zombies and the playmat turned up. As I’m writing this another Kickstarter is being delivered to home. A book about the development of Final Fantasy 7 called 500 Years (iirc) also dropped through my letter box, and another Kickstarter that I’d backed.

My post tomorrow I’m rather excited about. I think once you see it, one or two of you will be too. I can’t wait to share it with you.

After playing Smash Up the other night it got me thinking about FFG’s much anticipated card game Keyforge while I was soaking in the bath the next morning.

Naturally I haven’t played Keyforge yet. I wasn’t at Gencon and one of the chosen few they gave decks too. I’m also not some big internet boardgaming content creator (I think that covers most mediums) that they will send preview decks to. Apart from Scythe stuff this is probably the only time I wish I was. Being chosen by WotC to get a preview card has never been something I’ve desired. But to play Keyforge early that will be cool.

However that doesn’t stop me having an opinion on the game, after all this is the Internet.

I’m hoping FFG up their organised play game for Keyforge. That’s going to be the secret to its mid to long term success. Well along with product being easily available. I’m hoping that FFG have learnt the lessons from Star Wars: Destiny. They need to make sure decks are on the shelf of the FLGS. No good having people learn the game and not being able to buy it. But back to the organised play. My experience of the FFG efforts for Netrunner and Destiny have been less than stellar. They have been underwhelming. Compare it to MtG, at events I get a promo card, participation packs, etc. I feel I’m getting my entry fee back. Where with the FFG kits you get a promo card and generally that’s it. Well unless you win. Plus MtG has Friday Night Magic the weekly event that has promos, and prize support (this bit is usually store provided). Where as I never saw this locally for Destiny. I don’t think there was any support for weekly gaming events.

How will decks play between different releases? What I’m talking about here is I’m expecting in the next release of Keyforge is new mechanics etc being introduced. So if you played a deck from release 1 against a deck from release 2 will you still have a fun experience or will the release 2 deck be too over powering, and a less than fun experience for the release 1 deck player?

They also need to get the schedule right for releases. It’s a hard thing to judge. Too often and people will drop out, having not had enough time to get enough play out of the current decks they have. Take too long between releases and people will stop playing because they are bored of the decks they have. For me that sweet spot is about every 3 or 4 months.

There needs to be a way to play it digitally. If they aren’t working on a digital version shame on FFG and Asmodee (the parent company). Each deck has a QR code, you could scan that in, pay a small fee (not the full physical deck cost, ideally £2 max) and play your deck online against others.

It would be nice to have a separate token/counters pack and not have to buy a starter box, or to rely on third party to get them. They sell extra dice for games like Star Wars: Imperial Assault so why not tokens for Keyforge? Not everyone will want to get the starter box.

I think from the videos I’ve seen so far this will be a fun game to play. But will it have legs? Get the organised play and supply right (as I talked about above) then it stands a good chance. Too many games like Destiny and Ashes failed to make an impact. It’s going to be interesting to see if it gets any traction at my FLGS.

Two days silence on this blog is more like I’ve gone walk about, or missing. But it’s the start of the academic year, things are real busy. Plus more importantly I’ve had nothing to say! Yeah shocking I know.

This week I’m pretending to have a social life. Last night it was our fortnightly D&D session. We are playing through the beginners starter kit campaign with our own characters. I’m playing Dram a halfling wizard, and why I sourced and painted the mini.

The sessions have been fun, although at times frustrating. But this is a beginners game where for the majority this is their first rpg. I played merps at poly, followed by a very very long gap. So I’m hardly a seasoned pro.

Tonight it’s the second Wednesday of the month, which means it’s the Fenland Gamers Monthly meetup. I’m hoping to get to play Tiny Epic Zombies (despite my copy not arriving yet, although it’s in “transit”).

Friday sees the every other week or fortnightly Friday Gaming session for Fenland Gamers.

So you can see that gives a pretty good impersonation of having a social life. It also means that there has been no painting taking place this week so far. Wave 4 may start on Thursday. I actually started cleaning my brushes with special brush cleaning soap Monday evening. It apparently cleans and conditions! Sounds like a shampoo.

There you have it a busy weeks gaming, making it look like I’m popular, and have a social life. How the illusion of it all.