If you are at the UK Games Expo this weekend one of the designers of Streets of Commonville will be doing demos of the game.
This is an ideal time to grab Jonathan and get a look at this great little co-op game. In fact I’m hoping complete strangers stop him and say “hey aren’t you…”
I’m loving the box he’s had done for the game.
Here’s wishing Jonathan a successful expo.
Utilising my minifigs a small crowd scene to celebrate this geek day.
My Tabletop Day has started! Well kinda a “soft” start with me taking my turns in Star Realms (which if I counted app plays of boardgames is my most played boardgame ever!) and Patch Work.
Through out the day my Instagram account will be getting photos uploaded of the day's activities, which by the power of interweb magic gets shared on Facebook and Twitter. But sadly not here, unless you count the little widget on the left of the page.
Catch ya through out the day…
Yep that's this Saturday, which also happens to be a super special day, it's my birthday. My local gaming group the Fenland Gamers are holding a gaming session Saturday lunchtime to early evening. Register at the groups forum for more specifics, like location etc.
My biggest problem is deciding what games to take along. I'm thinking a mixture of “gateway” games, games on my pile of shame, gamer games.
Most LGS should be doing something for Saturday, so it's worth looking them up and finding out. Who knows they may be one of the stores with a rare Tabletop store kit for the day, and you can pick up a promo or two.
Today is Ashes Tuesday. I declared it that when I knew that the new Ashes expansions would be delivered today by DHL.
But it got me thinking there is Friday Night Magic or FNM for the weekly playing of Magic at the LGS. A while back I came up with Skirmish Saturday for playing Imperial Assault skirmish games. However it could be for any skirmish style game. It would have been cool if that had caught on.
Ashes Tuesday is a thing that might have legs. Run it like a FNM evening for the Ashes community.
I've been trying to think of something catchy for Android Netrunner. Could the Android community steal Cyber Monday from the marketing demons?
Epic the card game is crying out for similar evening. Luckily sticking Epic in front of any day of the week sounds good.
Having these themed evenings as Magic has shown is great for growing the community of a game. And a growing community means more people playing the game, and these types of games need people playing them. A healthy community means also your LGS being able to run tournaments and getting in OP kits.
Are there games you really like that could do with a cool name for the night it is played? What about Dice Masters (which I found out today has its first banned card! Which may or may not be a temporary thing), or Mage Wars?
For me one of the hardest things to do before a gaming session is to decide what games to take along!
So many things go into influencing the decision. For instance which group am I playing with? How many people are going to be there? Have I promised to take a particular game along for some-one? What am I in the the mood to play? Is there a particular game I want to try and get to the table?
A planned session like our Pandemic Legacy one or the up and coming Formula D League, are easy. The decision has already been made what to play. If I'm responsible for providing the game I just have to remember to take it along.
Tuesday evening at the Chatteris Warlords, or the monthly Fenland Gamers meet up are much harder.
Fenland Gamers I know not to take scifi themed games, LCG/CCG games or games with a drafting mechanic, because my fellow gamers there are not into those types of games. Where as Chatteris Warlords I can find people into playing those types of games.
Tonight is the weekly Chatteris Warlords meet up. So my Netrunner decks will go with me, but so will my Magic deck on the off chance. Do I take Epic with me? What about Star Realms? How about one or two of the themed Fluxxs? Is it worth taking Imperial Assault? I'd also like to get Imperial Settlers to the table. Would anyone be interested in trying Ashes? Oh what about…?
Decisions, decisions.
Maybe I should be more organised before hand and post on both groups discussion threads asking who is playing what, or who wants to play such and such a game. That question doesn't usually get much of a reply if at all. It almost seems like I'm being ignored, or maybe others actually have a life and don't spend all their time online like me.
I suppose I'm lucky in a way that I don't review games on here, or I'd have to add that into the mix as well. I can do without that extra pressure.
How hard do you find choosing games for a gaming night?
Yes it's Friday and the marketing spokesperson for Esdevium has come down from Mount Olympus and left some stone tablets for us to peruse. So here is the stuff on the tablets that caught my eye…
First up we have the most important release of the week for me and other Netrunner players, and that is the third data pack in the Mumbad cycle Democracy and Dogma.
I enjoy Zombie Dice and I believe Dalek Dice maybe similar to it. So being a Doctor Who fan, although the current Doctor has been ruined by poor scripts and development, this certainly is high on my wish list.
If I was playing Dice City more this expansion would be an instant buy. At the moment it will be going on the wish list. Finally hitting our shores is the deluxe version of Tokaido.
Sneaking out next week is the third T.I.M.E. Stories expansion, which I believe has an ancient Egyptian theme this time. Plus that really excellent deck builder Eminent Domain is getting two new expansions.
As I write this post in LGS all around the country Friday Night Magic is still probably going on later than normal. At midnight those players will be taking part in a midnight pre-release of the next Magic release Shadows Over Innistrad. Then over the weekend the same stores will be running other pre-release events also. Then next week guess what? Yep Shadows Over Innistrad hits the shops officially.
There will also be launch events next weekend at the stores. There are also naturally a range of playmats, deck boxes and card sleeves also being released next week to go along with this latest release.
Just noticed that the list of tournament legal skirmish maps for Imperial Assault has been updated.
Which means I need to unbag the dropped maps tiles, and collect together the tiles for the new map.
Still need to get to the table to play more.
The only game yesterday that Nath and I played before having to complete some chores and my traveling back home, was Epic the card game.
We started off drafting our decks using the two player open draft rules.
None of this deal two random thirty card decks from the top of the deck. No we were going to get the full draft experience.
I split the deck in half and we both took the top two cards from our deck and placed them face up in the middle. We then naturally took turns choosing from those four until there were none left. Can you guess what we did next? Yep we repeated the process of drawing and selecting until we both had a thirty card deck.
The remaining cards were then put away, and we prepared to battle on the awesome playmats I got from the Epic Kickstarter.
I know some folks out on the interweb think that the cards are too powerful and they come out to quickly. But that is the whole point of the game I thought. The Magic like experience with none of the setup, you go straight to the big feck off monsters, and just stand toe to toe knocking six shades of brown stuff out of each other.
I like Epic. I love that in the box you do get that Magic experience, you can do drafting, you can do constructed, that you can play upto four players out of the box, add more boxes (upto three) to support upto eight players. That there is such variety in how you get to that starting thirty cards in your deck.
The artwork is beautiful on the cards. Nath and I did have to keep referring to the rules to check what words meant. But that will come with more plays. I’m more forgiving I think of this than I am the iconography in Cthulhu Realms. Which is interesting. I think it’s because we were having to do this for every card in Cthulhu Realms, whilst in Epic it was just for some.
Eventually after holding out for a few turns Nath started demolishing me. I did manage to land some damage on him, so it wasn’t a complete whitewash.
I think Nath at the start of the drafting thought that may have been a bit dull. But once we started playing he enjoyed the game.
So far with games like Magic, Netrunner, I have shielded Nath from the “joys” of the drafting or deck building. We have used pre-constructed decks like the dual decks in Magic, or the default decks in the Netrunner core set. So exposing Nath to his first draft to build a deck to play with was his first step down a slippery slope.
I left Nath a spare copy of Epic to play with. I’m slowly building up his gaming collection. He can have the Kickstarter promos once I get him a deck box for the cards.
Can’t wait to get the Tyrants expansion…
I’m going to start with the new gaming arrivals.
Currently Amazon are selling Super Dungeon Explorer Forgotten King at around the twenty five quid mark, or just below. Which is an insane price because the rrp is just short of eighty quid. Why? I have no idea but those wishing to dip their toes into the water with this gaming system have no excuse not to at the moment. The price is crazy cheap.
Burgle Bros. is a co-op game where you are robbing a building while avoiding the guards etc. If I like this game the optional stand and red led lights will be joining the game. If/when that happens I don’t think you will believe how cool the game looks.
Next up finally despite the Wisbech Royal Mail my promos from Portal Game finally arrived. We have the doomsday machine army for Neuroshima Hex, plus two unaligned tiles that will be interesting to see how they shake up the game.
Plus the two tiles to use with Imperial Settlers and a card for the game (free bonus promo).
Next up we hit some Lego Minifig stuff. Using the bits that arrived I created a characture of my friend and husband to Amanda, Paul. I’m just debating internally whether to paint the mullet black with grey highlights.
Inside the box for the Red Shirt was the TaDa! Message. I just love the little touches like this.
Finally and very unusual for me, physical media!
Who isn’t a Thunderbirds fan? We know I have the Matt Leacock co-op board game based on the series (expansions still not produced yet, we might see them March!)
So guess what my plan is watch Thunderbirds and play the game.
The Flashing Blade brings back memories of Saturday morning tv, and part of a hit list of retro tv series from my childhood that I am sourcing. Luckily the stuff is dirt cheap these days.
Posted by me using my iPad and the Blogsy app