I like you but…

Ashes, netrunner

In a previous post I was pimping the page that I was selling some of my games on. It’s a once a year thing I do in the run up to the expo, with collection being at the expo. Mainly because I am too lazy to go through all the hassle of wrapping stuff up and arranging for it to be collected by a courier.

Anyway in this years clear out I sold two games I really like! If I really liked them why did I get rid of them? A very good question, and I’m glad you asked it. Let’s have a look at the two games and see why I decided to sell them.

First up and probably the easier to explain is Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn. I do like this game. I love the fact you can pick your starting five cards. It has deck construction, dice rolling, a nice back and forward flow to it when taking actions, with I take an action, then you take an action. You can mitigate poor dice rolls. The art is gorgeous. Stunning. I do like the art a lot.

But…

No one is playing it locally. There is no Ashes scene. Well unless you live in London that is, it seems that way. So I just wasn’t getting games in. Even if I got some-one interested in playing the game, supply has been an issue, especially on the expansions. Which brings me to another point. It’s coming up to a year now since the last expansion came out. There are a couple of expansions coming out (soon? I suspect being saved for GenCon). The tournament scene is on life support. Apparently there are events in London. But that’s too far. There was definitely no UK/EU Finals at this years UKGE. I didn’t see any one playing it either.

This decision to sell Android Netrunner did require a lot of soul searching. It was a very hard choice to make. I love this game. Spoiler alert, it just missed out on being in my Top 10.

Once again this is a game that has great art work. I love the art on the Day Job card. It’s why I didn’t sell the Day Job art work play mat I have. I love the flavour text on the cards.

Look at the flavour text on two of my other favourite cards Faust and DDoS.Isn’t that amazing? The theme really hits the spot for me. Cyberpunk, hacking, battling against big corporations. I love it.

So what made me send my collection off to a new home? The FFG Most Wanted List (MWL). Particularly the last update that introduced the extra three influence cost on some cards. I spend time building decks, finding combos, then to have FFG wreck my deck is not on. I could have just about lived with the cards being one extra influence. But making four of the cards in my runner deck an extra three influence, nope. They also did similar with the NBN stuff. “Ah but you could play games with others not using the MWL”, yeah but in reality it wouldn’t happen because the majority of players locally only play in the FLGS tournaments. And if I had made it to the Peterborough meet that is held to play then they are busy playing and testing decks to take part in tournaments (because they play at my FLGS tournies, and travel to play in them as well). So in reality I wouldn’t be able to play with those cards. It just felt FFG hated the factions I love playing in Netrunner. Plus I was not getting games in-between the FLGS tournaments. Like Ashes I really need to be playing it more.

I haven’t given up on this style/type of game. Dale and I play Star Wars:Destiny in our lunch breaks. And that’s the big difference, I am playing the game regularly, and we can buy product (now that it appears that FFG have solved the supply issue). Not sure there is a local meta for the game because I know that my FLGS doesn’t sell the game. I might have to see what is happening in Cambridge. Definitely won’t set foot in the LGS in Peterborough. And I think there is a tournament in Lincoln at the start of July. So Dale and I might try entering to see how that goes. But there definitely does seem to be more going on with Destiny than Ashes. I can see it catching up with and over taking Netrunner for FFG. I just hope they don’t ruin it like they have done with Netrunner.

There you have it, why I sold two games I really like and what I’m addicted to now! What are your thoughts on this. Do you agree with me, or do you think I have made a massive mistake?

My Top 100 Games ’17: 100-91

Top 100

Well we are finally at that point where I can present my Top 100 Games. That’s games that I own, and doesn’t include games I have played. That will be something I will add in for the 2018 list!

Yep after putting in all that effort developing the python scripts to allow me to do pairwise comparisons this is going to be something I can do easily now. But it means I can also add in the ability to take into account games I have played also. Which I will do now between now and the next time I go through this exercise again next year.

So that’s one upgrade to the matching engine I will be making. I will also be adding to the stats engine also. The first update will add a ‘pile of shame’ button that will list the games I haven’t played in my collection. The second update will be to look at the BGG Top 100 games of all time and compare that to my collection. So the output for this will be something similar to the BGG Hot List that I have done.

At the expo last weekend I did ask Sam and Zee how they did their lists. It’s less technical than mine. Well I am a code monkey. But it’s not too dissimilar either. They look at their collections, produce lists. Sam actually uses almost a paper version of pairwise comparison.

I think my biggest problem with this series of posts presenting my Top 100 is just how to present it in blog form.

I’m not going to write much, well anything about the games this far down the list. But maybe when I hit the Top 20 write little bits about what I like about those games. I am linking to the BGG page for each game in my Top 100. Thinking about it I might just write some general comments about the group of games on a whole.

Just one more thing to waffle on about. Remember these are games I like. Just because they are this far down the rankings does not mean I don’t like them. It just means there are other games I like more. If I didn’t like them they would not be in my collection. Although that is not entirely true. Until the expo Cthulhu Realms was in my collection for a looong time. Just glad I managed to find it a good home, and get a fiver for it.

Without further ado here is my 100-91…

100. Discoveries

99. Coup

98. Kingdom Builder

97. Catan

96. New York 1901

95. Ticket to Ride

94. Timeline: Star Wars

93. BANG! The Dice Game

92. AGES

91. Dark Moon

I was a little surprised about this group of games. There are some classics here, almost all of them could also be described as gateway games. I think considering AGES is an independently produced game, and little known, to be in the Top 100 is amazing. It is a nice deck builder. Which is a mechanic I do like.

I can’t wait to see what 90 – 81 are. Oh it’s as much as a surprise to me as it is to you. I’m trying to not look ahead!

UPDATE: Did a silent video of this list now, for those that don’t want to read my waffle.

Verses: Istanbul vs Viticulture 

Head to Head, Matchup, ranking, VS

Well I think there has been enough of a break to justify doing another of these Verses posts. I actually put this match up out there before the expo.

It really is a hard decision to make. Then again I think I have said that about more than one of these so far. Both of these games are in my Top 10 (at the moment, but I don’t expect that to change).

Istanbul, when played with all the expansions goes from a great game to an amazing game. The random nature of the layout of the tiles (taking into account a couple of tile positioning rules that stop one or two tiles being near each other) adds to the replay-ability of the game. With the expansions there is more than one path to victory. Plus there is a little take that added when you can block a route on the board slowing down your opponents.

Viticulture is a great worker placement game. But like Istanbul add in the expansions and wow. This has great production values. The turn order selection for each round is really cool, and gets even better when using the Tuscany extended board. The decisions you have to make at this stage before you have placed any workers on the board is incredible.

These two games are great examples of how to take great games and then take them to the next level with the expansions. I’d only play either without the expansions when introducing new players to the games. Otherwise it has to be all in (well we are still working towards that with Viticulture).

What did I decide? Well I don’t think it will come as any surprise to anyone I sat on the fence on this one and called it a draw. It is so hard to decide which one I prefer more than the other. There really is nothing that separates these two.

On Facebook Jonathan echoes my feelings about this one.

On a follow up, since the comment was made by Gavin, he has caved and bought Viticulture.
On Instagram I had one comment. I think the difficulty of this match up scared people off. That or they just didn’t care.

Fantastic Four Return

marvel legendary, news

While I was at the UK Games Expo this story hit that the out of print Fantastic Four expansion for Marvel Legendary will be back in print.

That’s huge news. This is an additional product to the Marvel Legendary plans for the year. It is also an exact reprint of the original expansion so no new content, and no first print promo card included (this was confirmed on their Facebook page iirc).

So expect a mad dash by those that have been holding on to their copy trying to sell it in hope of getting the inflated price it has been going for before the market totally disappears. It’s good news for fans of the game that wanted this expansion but couldn’t afford or justify the inflated prices being asked for it.

Now we need Days of Wonder to relent like Marvel (although things on the Marvel end were a bit complicated) and republish some of the out of print expansions for Memoir ’44. If Days of Wonder are unsure of demand, they could run a Kickstarter campaign for the expansions, and then just keep the supply topped up from time to time so that prices don’t get silly again and people who love playing the game can get the expansions and play them. Do Days of Wonder not like money or something?

Read the full icv2 article here.

UKGE17 – Final Thoughts

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I don’t know why I call this my final thoughts, it’s not as if the posts about the expo have been in-depth and insightful. But hey ho it is what it is.

After watching a demo of Bear Park, and having the game explained to me – I wasn’t impressed. Unless I’m missing something about the game, I don’t see how it is better than say Patchwork. Jonathan bought it, so I’ll try and get a play of his copy. But I just don’t get the attraction. I like the economic side of Patchwork, and the denying or not of tiles to an opponent based on which of the three available you go for. I can’t deny the game seemed popular Mayfair sold out of it on their stand.

RANT ALERT! RANT ALERT! So you are Warlord games, you have splashed out money on a big name IP. A much beloved character, that appeals to young and old (despite the attempts of the current show runner to kill off the Doctor with poor scripts and wasting a great talent). You create a Doctor Who miniatures game. Fine no problem with that, makes sense (kinda). Then you make it so that the models are on sprues! So you have to cut off the bits of the model (carefully) with a scalpel, then glue them together! I get that people into miniatures “love” doing this. But they are not the market you are aiming for here. You bought the IP because you want to appeal to a wider audience. Bring new people into the hobby, and buy your product. That new audience are not miniature gamers, they are ordinary people that are fans of the show. They don’t want to buy the game, open it up and discover they can’t play it until they have spend hours putting together all the figures. WTF were you thinking Warlord? I actually listened to a guy on the stand demoing the game to a grandfather and grandchild explain about the cutting, gluing and painting. At one point he even said that he “cut off the Dalek eye stalk so he could re-glue it back in different positions.” This is not the way to attract new gamers into the hobby. FFG/CMoN can produce high quality molded miniatures for their games. I can buy them and be up and playing within 20 minutes. A game that has an IP that is meant to appeal to a wider audience should also have this ability. Not buy and then spend hours piecing it together. That’s assuming that they have a scalpel and the correct glue in the first place. Otherwise it could be days before they get to play the game. I fear for how Warlord are going to ruin my favorite 2000AD characters (see announcement here).

I did express this opinion to the Modiphius who have acquired the Fallout licence. This is clearly aimed at trying to attract fans of the very popular video game franchise. And yet they seem also intent on making the same mistake as Warlord and shooting themselves in the foot. Fans of the video game will not want to spend hours cutting and gluing stuff together before playing. I can’t see how this escaped them. Steamforge did it correctly with Dark Souls. Doesn’t matter your opinion of the game itself, the fact remains you can buy the game, open it up in the store and be playing in minutes. I told the guy at Modiphius that I spoke to, in no uncertain terms that there would be no way in hell I’d buy them game if I had to glue stuff together. Nor would my students, who would be his target audience.

I’m gobsmacked at how the likes of Warlord and Modiphius can spend money on getting very popular IP’s and then do everything they can to make sure it won’t appeal to fans of the game. Even that Alien vs Predator game did a 2.0 that used pre-made minis, and dropped it’s price. Modiphius still have time to pull the rabbit out of the hat, and correct this big big mistake.

END OF RANT! END OF RANT!

I saw yesterday evening the figure of 16,500 for the attendance to the expo. That’s massive growth. Last year I’m sure that the attendance was in the 10k to 12k area. It definitely for the next two weeks anyway makes the show bigger than Origins in the US of A. So with this sort of growth and numbers will we see publishers taking the UK more seriously? Normally game announcements and releases are saved by the publishers for Origins, GenCon and Essen. So you would think with these numbers the UK and Europe deserve a bit more respect and have some of those announcements and releases at UKGE. It was nice to see a couple (and there may have been more) of games/expansions getting to us before the Origins announcement. I was able to buy the new expansions for Onitama, Sensei’s Path. Which apparently was due to be officially released at Origins in 2 weeks time. Which means we may see it here on the shelves of our flgs by the end of the month if we are lucky. Plus I was able to get the new 51st State expansion, Scavengers from the Portal stand. And it was nice to see Portal have a stand at the show this year. Hopefully they will have a bigger presence next year. Which is a good example of publishers taking the show more seriously.

Wow I know I met Tom and Sam last year briefly. But they would never remember that. However they are so approachable, including Zee! They really are nice guys. And whenever you saw them people were always talking to them, having photos taken (see Jonathan’s third trolling Eric photo below). Now other bloggers/reviews didn’t seem as approachable. The SU&SD guys looked anything but approachable and miserable as feck.

I will say there seemed to be lots of bloggers/reviewers at the show as press. Videos being shot all over the place etc. I wonder how many got recognized. Maybe I’m not good at self promotion, because I never once mentioned to anyone I wrote this blog, I didn’t have a tee on promoting it. Oh that’s right I’m there to just enjoy myself, with no pressure, and not have it feel like work. Stuff all this got to interview people, try every game etc etc. This is my main holiday of the year, I’m there to enjoy myself.

I did try Xi cards, which is a Magic the Gathering style game. The guys at the Critical Twits podcast were in love with this game. And they were the reason I tried the game. It was described as like Magic but without the mana/resource issue. I did mention that it was like Epic then. But the guys hadn’t heard of Epic! It was ok. The time points system for buying actions like drawing a card or playing a card was ok. The permanent damage to creatures on the board was fine. Plus you need a lot of tokens and dice to track use of time points and damage on cards. But I can see why in what three years this hasn’t really got any traction. Go look at the bgg page for the game, it’s a ghost town. £30 for four decks of fifty cards, seemed a bit expensive. I can get Magic Duel decks for less than that for the full Magic experience. Or buy Epic plus expansions for a better Magic like experience than this game gives. I mean at least Epic allows me to do constructed, and various draft formats. Plus Epic will have a pretty great app too (I really must play more of the Alpha release of the app, well play it full stop).

Now Zephyr: Winds of Change is a game I can see myself playing more of. This co-op game had enough to intrigue me, and tempt me to at least try one or two scenarios/missions.

I did go to the expo not having had any real games I wanted to buy. I was going to pre-order the 51st State expansion. So that was a very pleasant surprise to be able to actually buy it, and also get the promo cards for the game as well. The guys on the Portal stand were super nice and friendly, even got a cookie!  I do hope this was a successful show for them. There stand just needs to be easier to find and in the expo programme next year. Plus I wanted some of the Dice Tower promos. But other than that I had nothing in particular I wanted. So I’m pretty happy with the haul I bought back. Which was mostly funded by selling some games in my collection I no longer wanted. So glad to get rid of Cthulhu Realms (how to ruin a great game).

A successful show for me I think. A much better experience than last year for sure. I’d definitely recommend The Stables, Deer Farm for a place to stay. Same time next year?

UKGE17 – Day 3: The Final Day

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I had a decision this morning check out of my hotel and be on my way to the expo by 8:50 the latest or stay trapped in the hotel until 1:15pm! The second option also came with a free bacon sarnie at 11am. A tempting sweetener to stay put. I had been faced with this choice because the local roads were going to be closed after 8:50 for a fun run that was being held.

I didn’t fancy sitting around for the morning. So I made a flask of coffee, packed the brioche, loaded up and was off to the expo by 7:45! Just after 8am I was sitting in front of the lake at the expo drinking my coffee and having the brioche. 

Sadly no new promo on the FFG stand for Destiny.

The morning at the expo was spent just browsing. I was sitting on the fence over Statecraft, Friday and Lanterns. But resisted.

I did share with the guys behind the new Fallout miniatures game my opinion about having to cut stuff off sprues and gluing it together. As in I wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole. Nor would my students who would be the target audience. I’ll have to write a rant about this sometime. 

Midday was about right to head off home after two whole days there already. 

The mornings haul:

Not shown some Star Wars:Destiny boosters.

Games Played:

  • Star Wars: Destiny
  • Xi 

UKGE17 – Day 2

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I decided to avoid being packed in like cattle as the masses squashed each other waiting to dash inside to grab that elusive bargain.

With Diego, Jonathan and Charlotte at the expo today I was able to enlist them in my scheme to get the second promo card available for Star Wars:Destiny.


The target of my cunning oceans four plan!

Naturally with all the Dice Tower crew in attendance trolling photos for Eric Summerer had to be taken (and tweeted).

We also had the obligatory Fenland Gamers group photo taken.

Today’s haul:

Games played:

  • Santorini 
  • 51st State Master Set
  • The Cousins War
  • Star Wars: Destiny

UKGE17 – Day 1 

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What follows is a brief summary of the day.

The days haul:




Not shown 8 Star Wars Destiny Booster packs, and Onitama Dice Tower promos.

Spotted one or two YouTube “Personalities”. 



The Doctor Who miniatures game switched me off totally. No excuse for this whatsoever. Tom Vasel agrees with me too on this one. 


But the coming soon to Kickstarter Batman Boardgame showed them how it should be done.


FFG schooled CMoN on how to show off your new miniatures game to the public.


Finally games played:

  • Star Wars Destiny for the alt art Jyn.
  • Onitama 
  • Zephyr 

UKGE17 Day 0 – Arrival

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This morning I kicked off my UKGE with seeing Wonder Woman at the cinema. Wow Gal Gadot is not only stunning but a really great Wonder Woman. Her little spell in BvS didn’t do her justice. This movie is really well done. I’d say it’s the best DC Cinematic Universe movie so far (if we are not including the Nolan movies in this). It doesn’t try and tell half a dozen different stories, it’s fairly focused. Naturally after fighting a god, you do ask yourself why didn’t she wipe the floor with Doomsday in BvS? Disappointingly there is no end credit sequence. So you have been warned no need to sit through the credits hoping there is.

After Wonder Woman it was a fleeting visit to Tesco to get a cheese slicer, and some more cheese. This was very important. I made the decision I’m having cheese salad sandwiches during the day at the expo. And just chilling out in the evening with cheese and biscuits back at my room.

I finally left for Birmingham around three, and got to my hotel at five.

My room is a single. Certainly not the largest. But wow, location wise! The Stables is a working deer farm. Didn’t see any real deer on way in but I did see a couple of alpacas and a llama. I love these. Naturally I blame Jeff Minter and Llamasoft for this. 

As you can see I can sit outside my room in this weather and enjoy the evening while I enjoy my cheeses with a nice chutney (sadly not home made this time). The room has a small fridge in it. Plus a microwave, toaster, and crocks.

I did bring my Aeropress and a Pact Coffee. My order arrived in perfect time, i.e. this morning. 


As you can see with this coffee it’s meant to have hints of Strawberries and Cream! I’m looking forward to trying this one. 

The photo of the room shows I have a nice selection of cereals and brioche (even toast if I want it, although I did bring a loaf to make sarnies with). Plus the fridge has two little juice cartons, a yogurt, small milk, butter and jams. I’m impressed. 

Right I’m going to just enjoy this thing called a bed (first one I’ve slept on since I visited Nath last year!) and then organise the pick up of the games I sold at the expo.

BTN May 2017

by the numbers, gaming stats

Wow where did May go? The day this post goes live sees me travelling to Birmingham for the UKGE, after having seen Wonder Woman. A great way to start off the month of June and end half term.

I know after last months amazing record breaking figures it was going to be hard to top that or get close. But still it does seem to be a bit of a drop. Looking at the games played there have been some “epic” games hitting the table in May. For example Star Wars Rebellion was just over 5 hours of game time, and although we were nearly finished, we didn’t finish. Then there was 3 hours or more on Eldritch Horror. So bigger, more meatier games in May. Plus one or two organised meet ups fell through due to life, the universe and everything.

As the “stats” show I played more than the average this month. But was under for the played games.

The final section as usual presents the data graphically so we can try and see trends.

At the moment it looks like my overall trend for 2017 is I’m playing more than 2016.

My Game of the Month…

Not many new games (to me) hit the table in May. I think that the contenders for this highly regarded accolade have to be Star Wars Rebellion and Terraforming Mars.

A tough choice indeed. If my Verses posts and the pairwise comparisons I have been doing have taught me one thing it’s how to make tough choices. Plus how to avoid those tough choices.

I liked Terraforming Mars. But the share epic nature of this game that manages to capture the original trilogy is just mind blowing. FFG knocked it out of the park production wise. This is an awesome game. It deserves to hold the title of my game of the month for May by itself. 

Worst Game of the Month…

Game publishers around the globe will be breathing a big sigh of relief because there are no new inductees into the Nantucket Wing of Shame (still located at Jonathan’s house, despite him actually off loading said dire excuse of a game to some poor unsuspecting sap).

Hopefully hitting the table in June…

Wow I can tick two off this list for May. Star Wars Rebellion and Star Wars: Destiny both got to the table. For June I’m just going to leave it to these two remaining games on the May list.

  • Broom Service – I think a special learning session needs setting up for this.
  • Mech vs Minions – need to arrange a big session for this I think.

Fenland Gamer Events for June (so far)…

The Fenland Gamers celebrates its second birthday this month. 

After Junes monthly meetup it will be moving to a temporary location until a new home has been found for it.

  • Saturday those at UKGE are meeting up.
  • The weekly Friday Evening Gaming at The White Lion (or FEG@WL as I call it)
  • 10th – our first AGM! 
  • 14th – The monthly meetup (it’s the second Wednesday of each month).
  • 17th – T.I.M.E. Stories session (all places taken at the moment)

 If you are in the area and want to attend one of the events, please visit the Fenland Gamers Facebook page for further details about the event. Hope to see you there.