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.

With Wave 3 nearing completion it was time to prime Wave 4. Which as you can see is only 6 zombies this time.

While I’m boring you I posted these 2 photos taken of Nico this morning.

Managed to watch the latest Netflix Marvel show to drop yesterday, don’t read any further if you want to avoid spoilers.

So Iron Fist season 2 has dropped. Thanks to mum having a scan yesterday I was able to watch the whole thing in a massive all day binge session.

Ok what was my overall opinion of this season? I liked it. It wasn’t amazing. But what I like about these Netflix shows is that they are a bit more grounded (well as far as a superhero show can be, they are not constantly relying on mass city wide destruction) and grittier.

They were bound to do one of the characters losing their abilities storylines. I’m kinda glad they did it here. I’m not sure whether the multiple different coloured iron fists is cannon (I don’t read the Iron Fist comics, and barely remember him when he was teamed up with Luke Cage in the 80’s). I kinda think this storyline is a bit lazy and predictable, and a standard superhero trope. So when they do it, for me it comes down to how well do they do it? I think they did an ok job.

Typhoid Mary a character I was not familiar with, I liked. I wouldn’t be upset if she turned up in the other series (Punisher?). I’d love Misty to get her own series. I really do like her character.

Was it lazy having the sister team up with a bad guy for this series? What will they do in season 3 (if there is one), have both brother and sister team up with the bad guy? As for the bad guy, not the most threatening, with the Ra’s al Ghul cleanse the city plot. I suppose we will see this picked up again at some point because we haven’t had the big bad that was being hinted at. Defenders 2 plot line where they team up to stop it?

I thought the last episode didn’t do a good enough job of explaining how Danny got the fist back, and why now they could use it with weapons.

Oh and on the last episode at the end there is a teaser for Dare Devil season 3 (out December).

Worth watching.

Some how in my first half century on this planet I’ve never been to Nottingham. I have to say I was pretty impressed with the city centre from the little of it that I got to see. I think I nearly liked it more than Guildford or Peterborough. But then again there are not many cities for me to compare it with. I’m not a big city type of person.

I had some spare time before my appointment that had bought me to Nottingham, so while drinking a cortado in Costa I googled “board game shop Nottingham”. One of the top results was a Warhammer shop (I’m assuming these are rebranded Games Workshop establishments) real close to where I was consuming hot milky coffee.

So while taking the unintended long winded route to the place (I literally just had to cross the road) I saw a familiar name from The Dice Tower coverage of their trips to the UK for the UKGE, the Ludorati board game cafe. Which was by luck round the corner from the Warhammer shop.

Although not teaming with customers the Warhammer shop did have a couple of young lads sitting painting miniatures. It was nice to see. I bought this new collectable magazine published by Games Workshop and only available from their stores. For the £1.99 it was worth getting for the paints alone, it also had a brush and 3 models to build and paint. The magazine was a bit disappointing on the how to front considering this is aimed at beginners. If it had been better I may have got future copies, but there isn’t enough in the magazine to justify buying it. If you like or are interested in the lore, and playing Conquest then this might be worth looking at. But these collectible magazines are a scam, and in the long run over priced for what they are.

While handing over paper tokens, I also exchanged them for coloured stuff that’s meant to be grass! to cover the bases of my figures with.

Sadly there wasn’t enough time for me to visit the Forbidden Planet opposite from the Warhammer shop. My wallet and bank account breathed a big sigh of relief.

But I did get to look quickly inside the Ludorati gaming cafe. It also wasn’t overly busy. It looked like a good selection of games to chose from if you were there to game, and lots of play space. But I thought they might have a bigger selection of games to browse and buy. It was a bit disappointing on that side. But I was able to buy a recent issue of Tabletop that I was interested in getting. Who would pay £5.50 for that “free” gift I don’t know? I certainly wouldn’t.

Next time I need to plan things better, because I think Nottingham is the stamping ground of an ol’ college friend from many many moons back. It would be good to touch base with him again after all these years.

Here is an amazingly easy clue to the theme for the new secret Commander deck that I mentioned in passing in one of the posts on Tuesday.

I also (if my failing memory hasn’t betrayed me) mentioned the Commander in passing in my coverage of the Commander 2018 spoilers. It is also possible when I was talking about this Commander that I pointed out there will be a few new decks built around this Commander.

Thought I’d have a little fun with you all, or with those that care anyway.

Here is a musical clue to the theme of the Super Secret Commander deck that I mentioned yesterday in a post. I have no permission to have this here,I’m breaking copyright in so so many ways it’s unbelievable. But I acknowledge the rights of the copyright owner which I will name, and give info about this bit of music at the weekend once I give the answer. Otherwise this information gives the game away.

There will be another clue tomorrow.