Into the Wildlands

Game day

Yesterday I was once more welcomed into the home of Diego and his family to play some games.

The game we ended up playing for the afternoon was the latest Martin Wallace game published by Osprey Games, called Wildlands.

Diego and I first saw the game on the Osprey stand at Tabletop Games Live at the end of September. The slots to try the game didn’t work for us, and Osprey forgot to mention there was a copy in the rather small games library (something we found out after the show) for people to use. But the explanation we had of the game by the Osprey staff, and examining the game components convinced both of us that this was a game we’d like, and should be on our wish list.

About a month later, just after Essen, Wildlands dropped onto the shelves of stores. Somehow a copy found it’s way to mine.

Yesterday was the first time Diego and myself got to play the game.

Wildlands is a light miniatures skirmish game with a hand management element.

The game comes with a double sided board, that has a different map on each side. There are 4 unique factions included, that have very different play styles, and rather nice insert trays to organise everything. Which even just about takes sleeved cards. The miniatures in the game come with a wash applied, and look awesome. So you really don’t have to paint them. The overall component quality, and the touches mentioned is outstanding.

In about two and a half hours we played 4 games. Which is very quick really. Set up is also very quick, 5 minutes max. The longest hardest part of the setup is deciding on a faction to play. Diego and I only played 2 factions each. But each faction we chose, we played twice.

The rules are very streamlined, and quick to learn. Which means such things as combat, line of sight are very uncomplicated, and aided greatly by some nice graphic design touches. No looking up stuff on tables in rule books, and measuring stuff out.

Like Memoir 44 you have a hand of cards that determine what you can do on a turn. The hand management is crucial to being successful. Diego was far better at this than me. I think I remember one turn when he did nothing and just drew cards. I did this a few turns through out the 4 games. It’s nice that you can only have a max hand size of 7 cards, and only draw up to 3 cards at the end of your turn.

Each faction feels unique, and plays differently. But they seem fairly balanced. Or in the pairings we had they did. Which is why it was cool we played our factions twice. The first time was almost a getting to know my faction game. Ok I lost all 4 games. But none of the games were wipe outs. They were ending with scores of 5-3, or 5-4. So pretty close really.

I like the setup and the use of location cards. Each player gets 10 location cards at the start. They assign a card/location face down to each character in their team, and the remaining 5 cards get passed to your opponent on your left. You receive 5 cards back from your right. Those 5 cards are used to determine where you place your shards that you need to collect. This is a great mechanic, because you are able to control (depending on the cards) where you opponents place shards and set potential traps.

Not having to reveal the positions of your whole team at the start of the game is also pretty cool. You do have to reveal at least one of your team at the start of each turn, until they are all revealed. And you can reveal more during your turn if you so wish. This enables you to set traps, hold back until it’s the most advantageous to reveal them.

Another nice mechanic is that if one of your team is killed, then those cards aren’t dead. You can use them to claim shards.

The simplicity of combat, line of sight, and cover helps keep the game flowing. Being able to interrupt a players turn is a nice mechanic, which we did use. But not to any great extent in a 2 player game. Diego and I were both keen to try the game with more players.

One of the things that I asked Osprey about was future plans for the game. Already a new expansion is out The Undead (my copy should arrive this week due to UPS losing a delivery to the store I pre-ordered from) that adds a new team plus play mechanic. Next year we see another team plus a new map board coming to the game. Because the secret to the longevity of this game is the support of it with expansions. Where Osprey and Wallace take the game after that who knows? But Osprey did give the impression they had a bit of stuff lined up.

It was a blast playing the game with Diego. As always he was a fantastic host.

Mana Screwed II

Game day, keyforge, magic, MtG


Out in the wider MtG world it’s the weekend of the Liverpool Grand Prix. Technically I think this is the last one before the become MagicFest. These sort of events (for me) are over priced. Especially once you add in travel and accommodation. I find events like UKGE much better value.

So while all those wanna be pro players were in Liverpool, I was taking part in my FLGS Standard Showdown again.

Due to road works I nearly didn’t make the start of the Showdown on time. So a call was made to let John know I was on my way and might be 5 minutes late. On the journey over I thought I had left one of my Carnage Tyrants in my big green stompy Commander deck. And part of the journey over was working out what would replace it. A Doom Whisperer would be the obvious choice. But luck would have it when I finally arrived at the store and checked my deck, I had put it back. Phew!

Let battle commence, the first round pair ups were announced…

Round 1 Kar-fai mono red

If my deck hadn’t decided to screw me over I would have done better! Being mana screwed is one of those things you live with in MtG. It’s an aspect of the game you accept. To be fair sometimes it’s not a fun experience. But what characterises every MtG player while they are experiencing the mana draught or mana flood (too much land opposed to too little/none) is the optimism that the next card will be the one you need. That mana that enables you to start playing. But the longer the draught goes on, the harder it becomes to turn things round. Until it gets to the point of no return, and saving the game becomes impossible and the optimism ebbs away to be replaced by accepting the inevitable. Luckily at that point the suffering is soon over as your opponent puts you out of your misery.

That describes two of the three matches I had with Kar-fai. The third game (which in reality was game 2 iirc) which I won was one of those games that I managed to stabilise and grab the win.

Result: Loss 2-1

Round 2 – bye

My loss meant I got to sit back, take some photos, and spectate the games being played.

Result: Win

Round 3 – Andy red white knights

Remember me describing in-eloquently above what it’s like to be mana screwed? Work with me here, it was a couple of sentences back or so. Recent history, from as far back as 40 minutes before, decided to repeat itself. I know I have mana in the deck, I’ve seen it. But once again it decided to play hide and seek.

By the end of our first game I think I’d resigned myself to the fact it was going to be one of those days, or to use an over used cliche, “a bad day at the office”. As dad used to be fond of saying “shit happens”. Indeed it does, and how we handle things after the shit happening, defines the sort of person that we are.

I’m not going to rush out and change my deck because of a bad result or two. I think it has already proved that it can on it’s day hold it’s own. I’m happy with this version of the deck, which won’t get changed until the next set rotation.

It won’t put me off playing in more Standard Showdowns either.

What I’m basically saying is I’m picking myself up off the floor, dusting myself down, and continuing to play.

It’s that trying again. Not being put off by failure. The determination to succeed. It’s been a really useful skill that has defined me since an early age, and been crucial as a programmer.

Oh bugger this is getting deep, I better change the mood quickly. I lost both games, for reasons that have already been discussed.

Result: Loss 2-0

Friendly Game 1 – Andy’s Mono Blue Mill Deck

Andy had come across an article about playing mill at FNM, which also happened to be a budget deck, and he had the majority of the cards. So he built the deck. And that’s what I played against here. I recognised the cards that formed the mill engine (Psychic Corrosion and Drowned Secrets) I’d seen them put to good use in a series 5 game of Spellslingers with Day 9 playing the deck. Strictly Better MtG also did a deck tech on it also. But I hadn’t come across the article Andy had mentioned.

Andy got a copy of both the core cards of the deck out, and I was milling cards. Just not fast enough for it to really effect the end result. My creatures with nothing to block them swung in unopposed. And were doing damage faster than I was being milled.

I have to admit I like the idea of the deck. And I was tempted to build a version of the deck myself when I first saw the episode of Spellslingers. Now I know I am going to create a version too. I’ll use the same core engine. But I’d love to know why no millstone.

Result: Win

Friendly Game 2 – Dean Mono Green Aggro

Dean finished top 3 with his deck. So I was curious to see how my deck would do against it. Especially since we shared cards.

Taking out Dean’s Llanowar Elf early on was a very wise decision. It slowed him down. My battlefield was building up faster than his, my big hitters were coming out. But so was Dean’s. We would soon be getting to that crunch point of a reckoning. A reckoning based on the current board state I’d win, but the board would be decimated. With Vivien Reid out I was able to keep my hand full of creatures to play. Then being able to ultimate her was enough to give me the game. This was the first time I’ve ultimated Vivien. Usually if I can use her a couple of times to get a creature or remove something then I’m happy.

Result: Win

So once the dust had settled and the WotC software finished its advanced calculations my final position was…

Final Position: 5th out of 7 (Kar-fai took top spot)

Prize: 1 participation pack (took a Battlebond booster) and a Standard Showdown booster (pulled a Crucible of Worlds).

After the showdown Kar-fai played some Keyforge with me. This was Kar-fai’s first time playing, so a learning experience. We used the following two decks of mine Evie, Desperado of the Melancholic Haven vs Blindingly Fanatical Erkki. Kar-fai played Erkki, and I played my latest arrival Evie.

Our first game was a white wash for Kar-fai. The Evie deck did all the work, but I forged 3 keys before Kar-fai had forged one. I did feel a bit guilty. Had I inadvertently used an over powered deck? This new deck was a voyage of discovery for me. I liked it. It was fun, especially the 3 warped wormholes that it had. I even enjoyed the mars side of the deck, a house I’ve not really played.

Afterwards we swapped decks.


This was a completely different game. I took an early lead, Kar-fai pulled back level. This game was dragging on. Neither of us could make that break through to forge the third and final key. We’d get the ember needed, but the other player on their go would be able to do enough to stop the key being forged. Whether it was decimating the opponent’s ember supply, capturing just enough ember, or even stealing it.

In the end we called the game a draw. Mainly because John wanted to shut up shop, it was closing time.

But despite that, and the twinge of guilt from the first game. I had a blast playing the games. That back and forth in the last game was intense and a blast. Plus Kai-far enjoyed playing, and is potentially looking at grabbing a couple of decks.

Despite my deck hating me today I had a great day of MtG and Keyforge.

A light evening of gaming

Fenland Gamers, game night

I say this every time but 2 weeks already? Numbers for the evenings gaming was a nice even 4. Once again the evening was hosted by The Luxe Cinema and it’s wonderful staff.

Our evening of light gaming started off with a couple of games of Kingdomino. What more can I say about this game? Not a bloody lot. Our first play of it saw a first with Jonathan and myself sharing the honours with exactly the same score. The second game was won by new member Syringa. Which goes to show how easy this game is to pick up. Learn in first game, then wipe the floor with them in the second.

Sagrada followed to the table next. A game we hadn’t played in a while. So it was good we could get it to the table again. It clicked at the start of the game that basically Sagrada is Rolling America but with dice, instead of writing down the numbers. Nathanial walked away with the honours for this game.


Now the draw back of writing a blog, and taking photos to use on it is Jonathan can spot mistakes. After the above was shared across social media Jonathan noticed something I hadn’t I had a die placed illegally. Luckily when I corrected the scores to take it into account, instead of Jonathan beating me by a point it was 2 points. It made no difference to Nathanial winning, he was in front by a large margin.

We finished off the evening with a few games of No Thanks! I think everyone won at least one game of this.

Basically last night although not “heavy” games, they were still fun and enjoyable. There were laughs, and banter. A perfectly enjoyable gaming session. What’s more we get to do it all again in Wednesday at the monthly meetup.

Once again a big thank you to the amazing staff at The Luxe and the cinema for letting us use its facilities.

More Wingspan Spoilers

news

Have you had enough of the fanboying over a game that hasn’t been released yet? I haven’t. The latest spoiler looks at the player mats, and sheds some light on what a turn looks like for a player. Followed by a look at bonus cards within the game. Just like the previous posts looking at Wingspan I’ll be copying and pasting the words typed by Jamey on the Facebook group, and adding some commentary, and wildly incorrect speculation.

So let’s start with them there player mats.

“…On your turn, you select one of the four actions on your player mat. You take the action, and play progresses clockwise.

Like in other Stonemaier Games, we like to keep the core action system very simple. However, Wingspan adds several layers of complexity that increase throughout the game as you build your engine, as each habitat on your player mat is linked to a specific action.

Both layers are linked to the bird cards and where you play them. The more birds you play in a habitat, the more powerful that habitat becomes for you on future actions (though there are egg costs to playing bird cards in columns 2-5). Also, many of the birds in Wingspan have “when activated” abilities that I get to use every time I choose the habitat in which I played those birds.

This adds up to a huge amount of progression over the course of the game, with players chaining together birds and improving their core actions as they play…

The player mats are huge and sturdy, and they each fold down the middle (the outside is designed to look like a leather field guide).”


So my guess about the action selection and the cards was partially correct. I got the obvious part right, but was way way off on the use of the cards.

I have to admit some games have that wow factor when you look at them on the table. Doesn’t matter what you thought of that pyramid in Camel Up! and it’s practicality, you couldn’t deny that it caught the eye and made you go wow. The same for Colt Express, it’s physical presence of the 3D train and carriages wow. I like to sometimes refer to it as table theatrics. Before you even know anything about the game, it has your attention and interest already. The photos of the table with the bird table dice tower and the eggs for me add that wow factor for Wingspan.

Ok time to look at those bonus cards within the game.

“With such a wealth of options in Wingspan, we wanted to give players a few beacons to help guide them as they make choices about which birds to draw and play (and where to play them). One example of this is the set of 26 bonus cards.

Each player gets 2 bonus cards at the beginning of the game; they choose 1 to keep, and they discard the other. There are also some birds with “when played” abilities that let you draw 2 more bonus cards (keep 1, discard 1).“

An interesting idea for the game. I’m assuming that the other beacon they will be using within the game will be the goals. I can see some interesting choices having to be made between cards that boost the bonus scoring and ones that drive your engine forward. I like those kind of decisions.

Oh and yes I nearly forgot the photos are copyright Stegmaier Games and I’ve used them without permission once again.

Farming and Forging

game night

Yesterday saw some gaming taking place.

It started off with a lunchtime game of Keyforge with the two decks I traded for (Bellandini, the Ranger of Whistlecorner and HRH Threeteen, the Bizzarre Distiller). The honours were shared one game each. And we did the whole swap decks after the first game thing. So we both got to play both decks. They actually felt pretty balanced against each other. I liked the archive mechanic one of the decks had.

Like all good tcg/lcg games there has to the odd card that it’s not entirely clear how to interrupt it’s text. One such card is Bait and Switch. It’s ambiguous text can be interrupted as meaning you steal 1 ember, then if they still have more steal another. Or it can be read that you keep stealing ember until your opponent no longer has more ember than you.

After some investigation while I wrote this post, the intent is it keeps repeating, so it’s the later interruption that is correct.

But despite that uncertainty about the cards text, I like this card a lot. It’s one of those cards you’d like a couple more of in your deck. It’s a control card that’s ideal to stop that key being forged, and give you a boost to your own ember production, possibly into a forging opportunity yourself. It’s why shadows and dis are fastly becoming my favourite houses in Keyforge. I must keep an eye out for a deck that has both plus maybe brobnar or logos. I’m probably leaning more to logos as the third house in hopes of getting my favourite art on the cards at the moment Wild Wormhole (I’d love the playmat of this art, sadly it’s only available as the top prize in the current organised play kits).

In the evening Jonathan and I met up to surprisingly to play some games.

Our first game of the evening was Reykholt, which was the latest addition to Jonathan’s collection of Uwe Rosenberg games. I think, and I may be wrong on this (I’m sure Jonathan will correct me in the comments if I am), Rosenberg’s latest game, and an early copy thanks to one or two retailers bringing copies over from Essen.

So Reykholt boils down to being a fun light worker placement game that takes place over seven rounds.

Each round you get 3 actions to select, which range from building greenhouses to grow crops, seeding a crop, harvesting crops, getting certain veg types (which can be used for seeding or in the tourism stage to advance) or even destroying greenhouses to advance on the tourism track. The tourism track is how you determine the winner of the game. The player who is furthest along it wins.

So during your turn you are having to balance between getting the veg required to enable you to advance along the tourism track, growing more veg for current and future rounds, and getting greenhouses to enable you to grow more.

Despite being a light worker placement game, there are still interesting decisions to make. The round counter and limited number of actions keep the pressure on, and make you focused. I also like that you can always advance at least one position on the tourism track and gain the resources that new position has. These resources under normal circumstances for that position are the cost to move onto that space. You are also limited to doing this once per turn. But used wisely it can be used to give you the resources to advance on maybe even during the current turn, but most likely on a future one.

I did use the greenhouse destruction to great affect in the later rounds to advance me along the tourism track, to spots where I had the required resources to advance. Plus I had a blindingly good first turn that advanced me 4 or more places on the tourism track.

The history books will show that I beat Jonathan. But despite that I did enjoy the game, and would like to try it at the higher player counts.


Our second game of the evening was Keyforge.

This was Jonathan suffering a style of game he doesn’t enjoy as a way of making up for me having to play a game of his! Which wasn’t really necessary because I’m happy playing most games (except dire Rick and Morty themed games which is all of them).

This was a learning game, so after the earlier experience I used the same decks again. Yes they are a bit more advanced than the starter learning decks. But as I pointed out earlier in this post I thought they were pretty well balanced against each other.

I actually lost this game down to a massive mistake by me. We were both at two forged keys, I had six ember and ready to forge on my turn. Jonathan played a card that stopped me forging a key, by basically making me skip the forge key step. Jonathan then got to six ember himself. I just needed to name the right house, capture an ember from Jonathan, and then forge the key on my next turn. But I called the wrong house, l played two cards from hand, went to activate the creature to capture the ember, and I couldn’t. It was the wrong house. I couldn’t stop Jonathan from winning. It was such a doh! moment.

So history will record that as a win for Jonathan.

I had a great evening gaming. And a great lunchtime session too.

Birdfeeder Dice Tower and more

news

So I’m continuing my posts about Wingspan based on the drip drip of information that is slowly being released.

Somehow I missed the first bit of information, because it should have been in the previous post. But I’m making up for it now. Once again before I start the photos used in this post are copyright Stonemaier Games, I’m using them without permission because I’m a rebel.

“We’ve never designed a cardboard dice tower, so I reached out to the experts at TowerRex. They designed the template, and Beth Sobel illustrated it. It’s a 2-piece component, and it’s designed for easy storage–simply lay the tower horizontally into the tray and place it in the box according to the storage guide on the side of the box.(I’ve exploded out that part of the image Jamey provided.) ”

First wow. Love the fact a dice tower is included, and it looks cool. Looking at the storage guide I’m not going to be too worried about wear and tear on the cardboard. And it’s great that they have actually designed the contents of the game to take into account storing of the dice tower.

But let’s look at the rest of the photo as well. The eggs look to be in the same storage containers used for the resources in Scythe. I actually like those a lot. So much so I bought a pack of ten to use with other games. I hope an extra two are included to store the cardboard tokens. The storage guide hints at there will be two provided containers of some sort.

Looking at the storage guide we can see there will be goal tiles, so I’m jumping to the conclusion that these will be randomly selected at the start of each game. And naturally there appears to be a mat for these goals to go on. Will we see players claim goals as they achieve them, and new ones get revealed. Or will they be goals that are there for the whole of the game, and can be claimed by whoever completes them? Or a combination of the two?

There will also be player mats, a score pad, and action cubes (if I’ve read the blurry text correctly). So will we be selecting actions on a turn based on our player mats and birds that make up our engine? I’m whistling in the wind here really, as I don’t have any insight into what is actually going to happen. But I’m guessing that the player mats will be basic actions you can take.

There was a bit more information given about the dice in the game and how they are used.

“The food dice in Wingspan are an example of input randomness (the randomness happens first, and then you make a choice–the randomness doesn’t make the choice for you). Basically, whenever you gather food from the birdfeeder, you remove a die from the tray and gain the corresponding food token. If the tray is empty (or if all dice show the same face and you don’t want that food), you toss all of the dice back into the tower. And if you still really aren’t getting the food you want, when playing bird cards, any 2 food tokens always equals any 1 food token.”

What I like about this bit of information is that firstly Jamey explains what the technical design term is that he uses. We then get told how the dice are used. But what I like from this snippet is that there is a mechanic to mitigate bad dice rolls. That’s important. You don’t want to keep having to reroll to try and get the resource you are after. Two for one seems a pretty standard conversion rate.

Then hot off the presses yesterday some photos of the Automa – solo play side of things were released.

“The Automa system uses cards to simulate an intelligent opponent (without requiring all the upkeep of actually taking turns for a player who isn’t there). Wingspan’s Automa includes a separate rulebook and a total of 16 cards, my favorite of which is the cleverly named “Automubon expert-level” card.”


As you can see it follows the same format as the other Stonemaier Games. It’s nice that it is there, but it’s not a side I’ve ever used with any of the games (so far). But these posts have peaked the interest of my friend Jonathan who does play much more solo games than me. So he will like this option for sure.

Ok that’s it for this post.

Competitive crushes casual

Commander, Game day, magic, MtG

My FLGS The Hobbit Hole has started a Monday afternoon Commander club. It’s aimed at those at a lose end basically, like those between jobs, students, the retired, on holiday or some other reason.

I found myself at a lose end after taking mum shopping in the morning. So I thought why not?

Three decks found their way into my bag, Trostani, my mono red goblins, and the new death and taxes deck.

Once at The Hobbit Hole 3 other people for whatever reason found themselves at a lose end also, and decided to do some Commanderin’.

The good news from the afternoon of playing luxury cardboard rectangles was I got to play all 3 decks, and long story short they at least got to do their thing (to some extent) but didn’t come close to winning.

My decks weren’t bad decks in my opinion. Well I’ve admitted my death and taxes is a work in progress and needs at least it’s mana base revisiting. But they were out classed. As were the decks of 2 of the other players.

If we use the Command Zone podcasts power rating for decks (see graphic below, and a whole podcast here) which runs on a scale of 1 to 10 for the rest of this post it will help give a point of reference.

So the graphic they did maps like this. It should be noted for reference purposes the precons that WotC sell each year come in on this scale as casual decks and a power ranking of about 4 (in the opinion of The Command Zone presenters, and I wouldn’t disagree with that).


So where do my decks fall on this scale? I would rate my decks between 4 and 6 depending on the deck, so either casual/focused decks.

In yesterday’s 3 games two of us where definitely playing decks between 4 and 6 on the power scale. While one was boarderline between 6/7, and the archenemy player was definitely 8/9 on the power scale with his decks. I’m calling the player with the over powered decks the archenemy because that’s the way the games ended up. One against many.

It should be a testament to the archenemy player that despite the three of us trying to gang up and take him out, he still wiped the floor with us. His decks were way to powerful.

I did try Krenko, Mob Boss as my commander with the goblins. Partly inspired by seeing him used in Bob’s goblin deck as the commander the previous week. I hadn’t really settled on the commander for the deck. So having the chance to try this card out was good. I liked it as the commander. Much better than Squee. Although I do like the idea of using Zo-Zu as the commander also.

Funny enough Treasure Nabber came out in my death and taxes deck but not my goblin deck. Which is when I’d have loved to have used it, as the goblins were up against an artifacts deck. Apparently whispering subliminal messages of “use your sol ring” or “use your artifacts” while Treasure Nabber is out doesn’t brainwash them into using their artifacts. It did slow down the others though because they refused to use their sol rings, or other mana generating artifacts. Sadly it didn’t affect the archenemy.

Island Sanctuary did get a chance to hit the table, sadly not with the other half of the combo. It gave me a couple of turns protection, and was useless once the archenemy got a steel hellkite out.

At the end of the session thinking aloud the archenemy player suggested he might build his next deck and not optimise it as much as he normally does. Luckily I don’t play commander against this player normally. I think this was the first time I had. But to be honest I don’t think I’d play with this guy again, unless he did turn down the level of his decks. It might be “fun” for him. But for me, and I suspect the others it wasn’t much fun for us. The little fun I did get was from my decks getting to do a little of what they were meant to do. Like generate goblin tokens or lots of tokens in general.

I suppose to some extent we didn’t fully establish the social contract and the power levels of decks that everyone was going to be playing. We ruled out mass land destruction, and going infinite. But the power level got missed. So a little blame does rest on the rest of us for the way this session turned out.

I know on a Friday evening the commander sessions are promoted as mildly competitive. That’s fine. I don’t play there on a Friday. For me Commander is a casual game that is meant to be fun.

If the game is with similar powered decks, or one or two are slightly higher on the power level, then the game is going to ebb and flow. And in general the majority will be having fun. But when there is such a big gap between power levels of decks. Then we get something like this session.

It’s time to show you some bird cards!

news

Ok Jamey Stegmaier has been releasing more info on the Facebook group about the up and coming release of his game, Wingspan. So without permission, because I’m an unscrupulous rebel like that, let’s look at the information released and the photos.

So what is the theme of the game exactly? Well from what we have seen so far, you wouldn’t be far wrong deducing it had something to do with birds. However Jamey has given us the overall theme now, “In Wingspan, you play as bird enthusiasts who are populating your aviary with birds.” Naturally looking at the info below about the cards the person with the most victory points will win.

“Wingspan includes 170 uniquely illustrated bird cards, each with a different ability.” Which according to Jamey from the times he’s played the game led to “very different strategies and engines each time” due the variety in the cards. I like the sound of that, adds to replay ability, and having to adapt strategies. Plus it means you have to play the game a few times to truly learn what all the cards do (unless you sit down and read each card). Plus there will be that element of discovery as you come across combos etc. I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest these bird cards for the basis of your engine. So I’m willing to bet that at least one of any possible future expansions will be just more bird cards.

The art on these cards (see below – once again I’ve “borrowed” these photos from the Facebook page and the copyright is all Stonemaier Games) looks amazingly realistic and wouldn’t be out of place in one of those Observer pocket guides.

But what exactly are we looking at on these cards? Use the close up of the Peregrine Falcon card and this description by Jamey explains it all. “In the upper left of each bird card is the habitat(s) it can be played into, as well as the food cost to play it. End-game VP is the number near the feather, followed by the nest type and the number of eggs the bird can hold. The bird’s wingspan is noted on the right, and finally there is the bird’s core ability.” It also looks like we get the latin name of the bird plus an interesting fact about it also on the card. Will we be learning stuff as we play? Will the game be fun and educational?

Mechs vs Minions was not only a great game. But it had a great insert also. It’s a nice trend that some publishers have picked the mantel up and continued. A recent example I can think of illustrating this is Wildlands by Martin Wallace and published by Osprey Games. The only draw back of some of these inserts is they don’t work with sleeved cards. Which is disappointing when that happens.

“…we partnered with Game Trayz… I had a very specific vision for a two-part tray: The tray itself would hold cards (yes, sleeved or unsleeved) for storage purposes, and the lid of the tray would serve as a card mat during the game.”

“Pictured here is the tray included in every copy of Wingspan.”

Yep every copy of the game will have this insert. I’m assuming cards will be standard MtG size so I can use my favourite clear sleeves, Mayday Premium. It’s nice to see that sleeved cards have been taken into account. I remain to be convinced the depth is deep enough on the insert. But width looks fine.

Well that’s all the new stuff I’ve seen, if anything else gets released I’ll save it up and do a combined post. I hope that this is proving of interest to folks. It certainly is for me.

A new combatant in the crucible

Game day, keyforge

Friday evening some plans were made (in pencil) to possibly play some Keyforge Saturday afternoon. However those plans fell through. Well they were in pencil so not guaranteed. But I have to admit I was a little disappointed that the plans had fallen through. I’d been looking forward to it, especially since my mood had been a bit on the low side for a day or two. I was needing some gaming in my life to distract and attempt to change things.

Out of the blue Justin called saying that a couple of Keyforge decks had arrived and he fancied playing some Keyforge. Naturally I jumped at the chance to play me some Keyforge.

Once at Justin’s and setup. I ran through the basic rules of the game, and the turn structure. Sometimes it can feel overwhelming when rules are being explained and it’s easier to just jump in and ask questions along the way. Justin felt this way.

For our first game I used my Blindingly Fanatical Erkki deck (Brobnar, Dis, Logos). Now you folks will hate me but I forgot to make a note of the decks I played against. But Justin’s deck took off and before I knew it he’d forged two keys, and done a damn fine job of denying me ember, and from forging a key myself.

For some reason I thought this was my four horsemen deck. And for a while thought I’d be drawing one of them any minute, it’s why I didn’t play a particular brobnar card that dumped cards from the deck into the discard pile until you ran out of deck or drew a brobnar creature. I hadn’t wanted to miss those cards. I was down to the last four cards in the deck when it clicked the horsemen deck was one of the other decks.

It was looking like this game was going to be a whitewash, I needed to at least get a key forged to prevent that. And that was the only real thought going through my head.

I was using the ability to archive cards to set up one or two big turns with my logos cards.

Eventually I broke through and forged my first key. Phew the pressure was off. I was expecting Justin to forge his third and final key imminently. But I was frustrating his ember production.

Then a fatal mistake was made by Justin. He allowed me to get a board state of mostly Dis cards in place. Suddenly I was able to exhaust two creatures to reap and get Justin to discard two random cards from hand. Plus I could steal ember from him. I also continued to put logos cards into the archive setting up that mega turn. Waiting for my battlefield to destroyed and replaced by logos cards.

But that moment never came. I was controlling the game. All of a sudden I had my second key forged, and in a turns time the ability to win the game. Justin was not able to stop the inevitable.

Somehow I had gone from trying not to get whitewashed to winning. This had been a long game 40-50 minutes I think. But it was intense, with ups and downs. A great game.


Our second game saw me try The Underhanded Captain (Dis, Brobnar, Sanctum). This was my four horsemen deck. Justin played his other new deck.

This was a very one sided game and much quicker.

It was interesting to play, and went off to a flying start. Although Justin’s deck did well keeping the number of big creatures down on my side.

I’m not taking this game as any indication of how good this horsemen deck is. Justin’s new deck had archiving and the potential to get some power turns played.

This game had more going on that affected the other players turn, like not being able to play a house, or having to play a chosen house. Justin chose Sanctum for my turn at one point which totally screwed me over because I had no Sanctum cards in hand. But my only creature out was a Sanctum one so all I could do was reap.

Justin enjoyed his first experience of Keyforge. I had a great afternoon playing. The socialising had had the desired affect. I was certainly feeling better than I was before going out.

We now have four Keyforge players in town now that I know of. Is this a Keyforge community forming?

NEWS: Yesterday also saw FFG announce that in the Master Vault it has hit over 200k decks registered. That’s phenomenal. Naturally it doesn’t give us any clue to the actual number of players of the game or actual number of decks sold. Mainly because a lot of players have multiple decks, not all decks bought have been registered (for whatever reason), and some of those decks will be from the starter set. But still I don’t think FFG will be unhappy with the numbers they are seeing for the game. What we need to see now is more organised play events being held at more stores, and the nurturing and growth of a community. But I’ll expand on that idea in another post (if I remember too, I am old and forgetful don’t forget, you may have to remind me in the comments).

If you want to see my decks etc, you should be able to scan the QR code below or search for my unoriginal account name.

By royal decree

D&D, game night, RPG


Somehow I missed being in the crowd for the royal visit to Wisbech on Tuesday. Despite having a holiday home not an hour away in Sandringham, we rarely see them or get invites. But us serfs of Wisbech on Tuesday were spoilt by having Charles and Camilla visiting.

Frankly I wish they would visit more often. Since the announcement last week of the impending visit the town has actually seen a police presence on the streets. The teen cycle gang that has been terrorising the centre of the town the last few weeks has been finally tackled by the folks in blue at the weekend. The stone steps and path by St Peters Church and the museum has been cleaned. Coincidence? Apparently the homeless in Wisbech had disappeared for the day. Large sections of the town centre (including car parks) were restricted access. Wisbech for a day only, had become some sort of utopia. Just once I wish the royals got to see the real town, and not some sanitised version that papers over the cracks and flaws.

For weeks (at least a couple) locals have been terrorised by that teen gang. Complaints seemingly falling on the deaf ears of the police. And now as I pointed out all of a sudden the man power has been found to do something about the gang! Let’s see if this high police presence and conviction to tackle the gang continues after the visit.

Wow where did that soap box rant come from? Not exactly the best start to a blog post about D&D.

Ok, time for the dramatic retelling of the latest adventures of Dram and that motley crew. Who if you remember were just about to fight 12 zombies after the necromancer Ace was talking to just disappeared. Shit was about to get real…
Grull rushed in swinging axe at the nearest zombies, that little gnome managed to take out a zombie all by himself. So while the others were going hand to hand with the undead, Dram started firing off one of his cantrips, Ray of Frost at the zombies.

All of a sudden a skeletal hand appears from nowhere and grabs Dram. It squeezes hard around Dram’s chest, getting ever tighter and pushing the air out of his lungs. As suddenly as it appears, the skeletal hand disappeared. Severely winded, it took a moment or two for Dram to get his breathe back. Then realising he was vulnerable Dram decided he needed to relocate quickly. So he quickly cast Misty Step.

One moment Dram was near Sarmyar and Nick who were fighting zombies the next he was gone. The others didn’t see Dram reappear out of sight at the side of the tent. Before he could decide what to do next, black magic missiles hit the others.

“Lay prone, weapons down, and we can talk”, boomed a voice.

Still reeling from that skeletal hand attack, and the casting of his own spell, Dram decided to crawl into the tent and hide. Inside the tent Dram saw a wooden chest. “Look at the craftsmanship on that chest. Like wow.” Thought Dram.

Once again the voice boomed it’s command.

Deciding the only way to appreciate such fine wood work was to sit on it and rest, Dram sat on the chest.

“Can I get up yet?” Shouted Dram.

The next thing Dram heard was Ace’s voice “drop your weapons and give up.”

Suddenly two zombies appeared in the door way and just stood there. Followed by that booming voice once again issuing a command, “leave or he dies”.

“That doesn’t sound good” thought Dram, followed by “I wonder who will die?”

The zombies moved aside and let Dram out of the tent as he made his way to leave. Right next to the necromancer was Ace just standing there not moving. As Dram went passed the necromancer he tipped his hat and complimented him on his magical skills. Dram could have learnt a lot from him he thought.

After joining the others of the group outside the walls of the ruined tower, Dram noticed Grull was missing. ‘Oh well he’ll turn up, something that big never stays lost for long.” thought Dram.

As if from nowhere the necromancer appeared next to Dram and says “if you ever want to join the dark side” and handed Dram a small bone tube.

Before anyone notices Ace also disappears. Maybe Ace and Grull have gone ahead. So Dram and the rest of the group head off back to Phandalin. The depleted group decide to make camp at a previous camping spot.

After setting up camp Dram and Sarmyar took the first watch. This gave Dram the opportunity to examine that small bone tube he’d been given. Wow it was a scroll of Darkness. Dram couldn’t wait to copy that spell into his spellbook back in Phandalin.

The rest of the watch went relatively quietly. That is until Grull suddenly appeared and ran up and grabbed Dram. Sweeping him off his feet, and in a vice like grip, Dram’s natural instinct was to grab Grull and cast Shocking Grasp.

The electric shock got Grull to let go of Dram.

Grull angrily asked “Why did you not fight?” Dram then spent the next few minutes explaining to Grull in little words what happened to him during the recent battle with the necromancer and his zombies. Grull seemed happy with the events and reason it appeared Dram had done nothing in the skirmish.

Nick and the gnome were still sleeping through all of this. They must have been really tired from the days excitement. They even missed Ace trying to convince Grull to drink perfume! Which he goes and does anyway, well a watered down perfume.

Once the hilarity was over. The rest of the night passed away without any incidents. After breakfast the group continued their journey to Phandalin. The following two days of traveling were pretty uneventful, and saw everyone arrive back in good time for the evening meal.

Dram was feeling particularly generous and bought a meal for himself, Grull and the gnome. Do you know how the gnome repaid that act of kindness? By boring Dram to death with a story of how he had come to meet up with this rag tag band of adventurers. Talk about snooze fest. Dram was gobsmacked that Grull was finding the story interesting. Dram was struggling to stay awake. This gnome just didn’t know how to tell a story. ‘Blah blah, betrayed, blah, blah killed son”. So Dram made an excuse needing go to the toilet, and disappeared up to his room.

Back in the room, Dram copied the Darkness spell from the scroll to his spellbook. Dram had only just finished this intricate activity there was a knock on the door. When Dram answered, there was Ace who handed him a healing potion. It was the potion that Dram had paid for before their little visit to see the banshee, and get their butt kicked.

And so dear reader, well done for making it through that dramatic retelling of Dram’s latest escapades. Join us next time when Dram will once more astound you with his magical powers, and reviews of the funniest eating establishments.