The ugly child

Fenland Gamers, game night

Looks can deceiving. There is that old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover”. 

And for Monday nights learning game there were never truer words said.

We were learning to play Castles of Burgundy. This game is not going to win any beauty pageant. But as the tired mantra of ugly people everywhere suggests, what this game lacks in looks it more than makes up for in personality!

Castles of Ron Burgandy – I know that was a poor joke. But it had to be done. Is a very nice game. You are rolling dice, getting tiles, adding them to your tableau, getting some benefit. All fun stuff.

Let’s get straight to the bad points, you may have guessed by the introduction it isn’t a pretty game. But who cares? The game play is great.

The rule book is not great and often the cause of some discussion and misplays.

And that’s all I can say that’s negative about the game! 

We were playing with the basic player boards, well it was our first game. So everyone had the same map. But the bit I like and we didn’t play with them was that there are more player boards each with different layouts/maps on them. 

This kind of makes it asynchronous for the players, each having different agendas on the tiles you need to get to complete your zones on your map. 

It also means lots of replay ability. Which means the game will be fresh for a long time.

Yes you are rolling dice, but the game has mechanics that allow you to manipulate the dice to get the value you need. Whether by spending worker tiles to adjust it up or down by one for each worker spent, or by using a tile ability you have managed to build. 

There are multiple tactics you can employ to score points. Sadly mine ended up not be that brilliant and ended up with me in last place. Luckily Diego didn’t lap me on the scoreboard. Which was Jonathan and mine ultimate aim in the game. 

How effective Diego’s tactic would have been if both Jonathan and I were also doing it, or even if one of us was, I don’t know. It would have reduced his scoring a bit I think.

Oh and there are opportunities to get extra “actions” during a turn too.

Yeah there is a lot to like about Castles of Burgundy. I definitely look forward to Jonathan bringing this ugly baby to the table again.

The saga ends

new arrivals, tabletop

Guess what was waiting for me when I got home?

I had been tipped off earlier in the day when others in a Facebook boardgame chat group for the UK started posting theirs had arrived unnounced.

So here is the contents from that massive box.


As far as I can tell at the moment everything is there, apart from six dice. But they might actually be in one of the unopened sealed boxes.

So having learnt my lesson with Kemet, I now have a long task making sure every box has exactly what is meant to be inside them. 

I am going to keep to my word, this is the last CMoN project I will back it buy. It’s left too much of a bad taste in my mouth to want to have anything else to do with them.

Lost Gods And Pyramids 

ages, Fenland Gamers

Yesterday morning I had to visit the local post office collection point to pay import duty of £12.88 on my Kickstarter copy of AGES. I don’t mind paying the duty. I do mind that £8 of that fee is the criminal “handling fee” paid to the post office. But I had the final production copy of the game I was excited to open it up. More on this later in the post.

So lunchtime yesterday Jonathan and I met up to play Kemet and Last Will.

We were going to start off with Kemet. Sadly as we were setting up it was discovered that there were no pyramids (and later it clicked no creature miniatures). This was the source of a little amusement to Jonathan. It’s fair to say I was not exactly happy with this poor quality control by the publisher. 

But I’ve logged a support call with the publisher. So another test of a publisher has started.

So with the bits of Kemet I did have packed away, we setup and learnt Brewsters Millions. Oops no we didn’t, it was called Last Will, which is really the board game of the movie without the license. 

Although not nearly as bad as say Guilds of London the iconography of the cards does take a little decoding. Having individual player reference sheets would help with this. Sadly none are included with the game. 

I liked that seeing as we were playing a two player game it made adjustments and gave us both an extra counter to block off one of the card/worker/action selection spaces. That blocking took place before selecting of a space you wanted took place. But that selecting of the space you wanted also acted as player order for the later phases. 

I felt the “worker placement” phase limited, and frustrating. You have a max of two “workers” you can place, although it could be just one depending on the previous phase and the card/worker/action space you selected. I would have liked a way to get an extra “worker” to use here. 

I did like the changing card market place, that adjusted the card types populating it depending on round. So no “I’ll get that card next turn”, you won’t because it goes and gets replaced by something new.

You are building a “engine” in front of you on your tableau for spending money. But it’s also possible to get bonus actions. So for example my “engine” was giving me two extra actions each turn. Your starting tableau has a fixed capacity to start with, but it can be expanded using one of the options available in the worker placement phase.

The instructions could be written more clearly. But isn’t that a common complaint about games? We found bits confusing or just not clear.

I enjoyed Last Will. It was fun. I’d definitely play again if it was bought to the table. And that’s despite Jonathan winning!

Our second game was AGES. Now I know Jonathan doesn’t like deck builders! In fact it’s one of his least liked mechanics, sitting just above his least liked of roll and move. 

But still Jonathan played AGES.

I really do like the final production of AGES. The cards look stunning and they are good quality. The box is beautiful, and enough space to store all the cards sleeved. A little thing, but there are two foam blocks to keep the cards in place inside the box. I like that, attention to detail. The rule book is a big improvement over the original one. Overall this is a very good, no that’s wrong it’s a high quality produced game. 

There wasn’t much take that going on in our game. Maybe that’s due to the cards that came out. I think I was the only one playing locations and using their abilities. But that’s just the luck of the draw and trade row!

Jonathan struggled with the text size on the cards at times. But we are old, and eye sight at times can let us down. On a serious note though, although an issue for Jonathan it’s not unique to AGES. Imperial Settlers, War of the Ring to name one or two others that have the same issue. 

The elite phase of the game is one of my favourite mechanics of the game. I ended up buying one elite character just to stop its elite phase ability. It had hurt me that turn costing me points, because I had no starter cards left to get rid of, and had only good cards in my hand.

It was interesting watching Jonathan playing. He was scrapping a lot less than me, and buying more of the 2 gold value cards. So his deck was way more “bloated” than my lean and mean deck. That may in part due to Jonathan having less opportunities to scrap. He was aware of the value of getting rid of the starting cards. 

I have to admit I thought Jonathan was going to win with lots of little points. But in the end my convincing victory would have been a lot closer, if not a loss due to a misplay by Jonathan. If Jonathan had managed to buy the elite character I bought triggering the end game, that would have stopped me buying it, and would have ended the game. Plus those points I lost because of that elite phase would have come back and haunted me and cost me the win. 

Jonathan liked the Splendor like aspect of collecting the icons and having them out in front of you, and their dual use to trigger abilities and reduce the cost of elite characters.

As I said Jonathan doesn’t like deckbuilders. He’s also not a fan of sci-fi, and fantasy themes. Which just about covers most deckbuilders. So having one that uses a historical theme means at least the theme was more likely to appeal to Jonathan. 

So when Jonathan said he didn’t dislike the game that’s a big deal. Especially when you consider how he feels about the mechanic.

Me? I really like the game. I love the deckbuilder mechanic. I love looking for those combos, and pulling them off. 

It’s easy to screw up a deckbuilder, just look at the World of Tanks deckbuilder. It’s disappointing that folks can easily get hold of that travesty of a deckbuilder, whilst AGES that really deserves a wider audience isn’t as easily available or known about. 

I really do hope a bigger publisher having seen the final version picks this up, and gives it the marketing love it deserves.

Oh and I love the playmat. 

So despite the shock of the missing bits from Kemet, I had a great afternoon playing games with Jonathan. 

Legacy comes to Netrunner

netrunner, news

FFG have just announced a new expansion for one of my favourite games of all time Android Netrunner. 

I don’t normally write about Netrunner expansion announcements but the new one announced called Terminal Directive is warrants saying something.

Can you see those two words under the name of the expansion in the picture above?

Campaign Expansion!!!

Wow I never saw that one coming. But wow! The podcasts, forums etc are going to be buzzing about this.

163 new cards in the box. Split 86 for filthy corps and 77 for the heroic runners. Sadly no mention of Anarch specific ids, but I guess they thought Anarch have had a lot of love lately. 

This has legacy elements! Yes you read that correct. Like wow!!!!

When you open the box you will be faced with the choice of two sealed decks, red or blue.

I already know I’ll choose red. So I won’t find out what those corps will.

You are putting stickers on a board, opening even more sealed cards.

It will retail at $59.95, so not cheap. It won’t be far off that when it hits the UK as pounds. Plus (and this won’t be an issue for fans of the game) require a core box of the game to play.

This is exciting. But I’ve got to wait!!!! Not fair. I suppose first quarter 2017 will get here soon enough. My money is on we see it in March. Any sooner and I’m one happy bunny.

Fenland Gamers November Meetup

Fenland Gamers, game night

The second Wednesday of the month is our monthly meetup. Last night was that Wednesday.
While the Pandemic crew were working to save the world, Diego, Katie and myself decided to take a leisurely walk from Kyto to Edo. Determined to have the best experience possible along the way. Yep we were playing Tokaido.

I’ve had this game for a couple of years now I think. Well certainly since seeing it on the original airing date of Tabletop, and the initial post Tabletop difficulty of trying to get a copy. You remember those don’t you? An episode of Tabletop would appear on YouTube and all of a sudden you can’t find a copy of the game because everyone wants to play the it, so they rush out and buy it, clearing up any stock that is out there in the real world.

Anyway I have played Tokaido a couple of times previously. Once with Nath, and the other with some friends on a game night I had over a year ago now. It was a hit on both occasions. However those plays were before I started recording plays with the app.

Diego and Katie hadn’t played before, and this was my first time in over a year. Even getting the deluxe kit, didn’t get it back to the table despite wanting to play it.

In fact it has been in the bag for game nights a couple of times recently, but it just didn’t see the light of day for whatever reason.

Our game last night was with the deluxe stuff thrown in. So the nice plastic minis, metal coins, and the little plastic parcel score markers.

Tokaido is a beautifully looking game, But when it’s pimped out like this it looks even nicer.

There was a little back and forth between Diego and myself for the lead, with Katie trailing behind on the score board. But in the end, when we added everything up, my journey from Kyto to Edo was the most enjoyable! Yes thats the flowery way of saying I won.

I’m so disappointed with my writing about Tokaido above. I had promised myself the next time I played the game, and wrote about it, I would dig out some of my photos from doing the TGO Challenge, and compare the experience of walking from one side of Scotland to the other was like playing Tokaido, and having that great experience.

The world still hadn’t been saved by the time we had finished playing, in fact they were looking defeat in the face apparently, and wouldn’t be long. So we needed a quick game to play.

Step up to the plate newish arrival FUSE. FUSE plays in ten minutes. Potentially less but no longer. At the end of ten minutes you have either beaten the game, and defused all the bombs, or you have failed miserably and everything has been blown to pieces.

This was the first time for us all playing this co-op dice chucking game. So we set it at it’s easiest level. The game still kicked our butts.

But it was an enjoyable kicking. Look we are not in to that Tory stuff. Although its not very convincing I would imagine because this is the second time I’ve had to make this denial in a post recently.

You really do need the free companion app that you can install on your smart phone, that basically gives you a ten minute countdown with sound effects, and a way to record scores. It just makes life easier when playing, and a bit more atmospheric.

For me FUSE is leaps and bounds above Bomb Squad. Its more enjoyable, and although dependent still to some degree on who you are playing with. It is much much less so.

Our final game of the evening was The Manhattan Project Chain Reaction, while the Pandemic crew played Piece ‘o Cake. The Manhattan Project Chain reaction is a favourite, and probably one of my top Kickstarter backed games. Easily in the top three I think.

Diego and Katie picked the game up quickly, it is very easy to teach and after a turn most people get it. Diego pipped me to the win. One more turn and I would also have scored ten points.

Afterwards a little time was spend discussing Seafall, and Jonathan being lured by shiny metal coins in the copy of the game he was looking at. Plans were made for getting together and playing the prolog of the game. So that we could get a taste for wether this was a game we wanted to make a big commitment to.

Good byes were said. And another great monthly meetup came to an end.

 

Just another cog

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night I got my butt kicked and I liked it! 

Wow! Now hold on I know what you are thinking, it’s not like that. I’m not into that Tory MP stuff.

No we were playing T’zolk’in the Mayan Calandar board game.

Jonathan had got this worker placement game from one of the UK boardgame trading pages on Facebook. And it was time to get it to the table and learn how to play it.

Visually the board looks great, especially with the cogs on it painted black. The previous owner had painted them. Otherwise I wouldn’t say that the rest of the art for the game looks amazing, but I would say it’s ok.

It’s the cogs that make this game unique. You place a worker on the cogs, possibly paying a cost doing so, and ride it round until you hit an action you want to perform. And then perform that action.

Each cog has a different range of abilities based around a theme. Such as getting corn or wood, while another allows you to  place crystal skulls (oh crap I’ve just remembered that awful Indie movie, why oh why couldn’t Spielberg and Lucas leave Indie alone?) to score points and move up a temple.

You have various tiles you can build that give you an instant one off boost, or there are ones that are permanent power ups.

With four scoring opportunities through out the game, you need to make sure you are prepared. Which basically means you need to have enough corn in to feed your workers.

Going first is definitely an advantage. Being able to grab those zero cost spots on the cogs, pushing up placement for the other players.

My first mistake of our learning game was chiding the wrong starting bonuses. Which put me on the back foot right off.

As worker placement games go, this is an above average game. It’s not the best, but definitely not the worst either. I like it, and would gladly play again. Would I go out of my way to ask to play it? Now that’s the question. 

Quantum Creed Looping Cops!

Fenland Gamers, Game day


Well having totally mashed up four time travelling films and tv series to make a blog post title that is a complete disaster this post can only get better right? Wrong!

Yesterday as the Rock would say “finally! T.I.M.E. Stories has hit the table!”

I’m going to give a spoiler warning just in case, and I’m bound to, do disclose spoilers for the games first scenario/mission Asylum. 

So Jonathan, Will, Lucia and I gathered to act as time agents or whatever the game calls us. Whilst Jeff very kindly came along to act as GM/DM for the game. Jeff had played this scenario before. Apparently three times! For the rest of us this was the first time we had ever played the game.

My first recepticle was Vasil, who had a little addiction problem with “nose candy”. Which he apparently had managed to hide three vials of from the screws. And was now able during my control of him to use these vials to roll extra dice, or heal other players! But if he ran out took a permanent life point hit. 

All the recepticles had their strengths and abilities. At the start you are choosing at random which one you want to play, you have no idea which will be useful in the mission ahead. So you go with the one you like the look of. 


The game is fun. I thought there was going to be more puzzles. It was the impression I got from reviews on The Dice Tower. 

In reality it’s more discovering the pieces of the main puzzle, and getting items to unlock more items, and locations.

There are still one or two things we haven’t done in the game. Which means there is a little mystery in the game, that we will never know unless we go back and solve them!

Surprisingly I cracked the main puzzle! Jonathan had been working on it, taking on the mantle of code breaker, making copious notes from the collected clues. But we all put our heads together to solve it when we reached the key point in the game when it needed to be solved to progress.

After that brief flash of glory, I soon became the villain! 

Which I think is unfair it was a majority decision. A naked woman was involved!!! Will went to the toilet at a crucial moment when the vote was taking place. If he’d been there to argue his case. Did I say there was a naked woman? 

Anyway we voted to do as the naked woman requested, which I thought would lead to a final big boss fight. The alternative was to disobey her (she was naked, why would you?) and fight these stone statues that I suspected would come alive, and then fight a big bad.

But no following your pants apparently has bad consequences. I think there might be a life lesson in there somewhere. We instantly failed the mission. No big boss battle! 

Then Will came back from the toilet to face the consequences of his weak bladder. 

See when you look at it in the correct light, the real lesson here is don’t go to the toilet during a key vote. Which leaves my rule of life “do what the attractive naked lady wants” still in place.

Jeff was great as the DM/GM. He had a brilliant wicked cruel streak, planting seeds of doubt at really appropriate moments. I think it really helped having Jeff there, being familiar with the rules etc. It also gave me confidence in playing the game. Going into the game I was worried about the resetting the game part, and how that all worked when you ran out of time. In fact I’d had that concern ever since reading the rules months ago. But between Jeff and actually playing the game that concern vanished.

This is a game that will be dependent on the people you play it with. Have the wrong people and I don’t think the experience will be that enjoyable. We had a fantastic team.

UPDATE: forgot to say how awesome the art work is on the cards. And how clever it is that the backs make up the scene of the room you are in. The art really is stunning.

We had a great time. T.I.M.E. Stories deserved all the praise it has received. If this had been any other month I think I’d be saying this is my game of the month! However as I pointed out in my previous post about game of the year, it’s too early to make that decision. It’s the front runner for sure. And has set a high bar for the likes of Kemet, Scythe, Lunarchitects, and Mechs vs Minions to beat.

I have set a date for The Marcy Case, the second mission and first expansion for T.I.M.E. Stories. So early 2017 hopefully sees the team back together taking on the next challenge.

FEG@WL 4Nov16

FEG@WL, Fenland Gamers, game night

It’s Friday, it’s five to five and it’s Crackerjack! Oh no wait it’s six and it’s Friday Evening Gaming at The White Lion.

I love starting my weekends this way. Gathered with old friends and making new ones, playing great games, enjoying great beverages, and finishing the evening off with “meat by-products” in a naan with salad and chilli sauce from one of the finest cut-my-own-throat dibbler wanna-be’s in Wisbech. 

Last night was no different. Lucia and Will joined us for the first time. And it was great meeting them. Despite Lucia winning our game of Love Letter Batman , and me not getting a single point. 

It’s one of the things I love about Fenland Gamers as a club. It’s not about winning (ok it might be) but about having a good time. It’s not an uber competitive must win at all costs, throw a temper tantrum if you don’t win. 

We have friendly banter, a laugh and joke about losing, and making sure I finish higher than Jonathan. 

Our second game of the evening was a first time for all of us but Jonathan. But he hadn’t played it for a long while. So it was kinda a level playing ground.

Oh the game Finca. This apparently according to Jonathan is a hard to get game now days. Well unless as Rocket argues I want it more than him, and I bribe one of his kids to “relocate” the game to my collection for me.

It’s a nice game. It makes great use of a rondel disguised as the sails of a windmill or finca as it is called in the game, to collect resources (fruits) and delivery tokens (donkeys) to complete various orders around this island you are on to villagers.

You get four one off use power ups that if not used give you points for each one left. But sometimes you want that power up to give you that little tactical boost.

On each of the zones/areas on the board are a small pile of orders to complete. Clear six(?) of these piles from around the island and the game ends and it’s down to adding the points up. In the meantime when a pile has been completed, a bonus token is awarded to the player with the majority of the indicated fruit type on the token on their completed.

History and my game play tracking app will record I lost, while Will won.

Our final game of the evening was a game that really does not get enough love Bohemian Villages. Jonathan and I love this game. It’s easy to teach and quick to learn. A blast to play. 

Jonathan has the new promo mini expansion from the Brettspiel Advent Calendar 2016. This basically adds three new tokens to the game that you can claim one of if you score thirteen or more on your dice roll. One token is a one off use that anables you to change two dice to a side of your choice. The other two give permanent abilities that either allow you to add one to a dice value or subtract one from a dice value.

I went for the add one to a dice value early on. I found that very useful through out the game. Jonathan got both of the permanent tokens. Which we both agreed at the end was over kill, you only really need one of them. 

But this promo is a nice little addition to the game. It gives you another thing you can do with your dice. I think I’d always play with it (if I had it).

Somehow I had a mare this game and ended up last again! With Jonathan who had been trailing all game taking the victory! 

So another Friday without a win! But despite that I had a blast. That journey to last place each time was fun. 

After a little gaming geek type chat, it was off to binge on “meat by-products” in naan, to bring a great evening to an end.

My Game of the Year is…tbd

Uncategorized

On the Fenland Gamer facebook page there was a brief discussion about what our personal game of the year would be.

Despite ten months of the year gone, I still feel that it’s too soon for me to be making that decision. I still have some games that I want to play before the year has finished.

For starters I have Scythe just arrived, Kemet is in the postal system, Lunarchitects has entered the postal system, Hero Realms is due to be posted to me any day now.

I’ve pre-ordered Cry Havoc. I want to get Robinson Crusoe (funds permitting). This next one is a long shot but I may even see The Others before Christmas. Jonathan has a couple of games he wants to get to the table.

Plus some of the games in my pile of shame may also make it to the table.

So as you can see there is still potential game of the year candidates to hit the table.

I do know that I will be choosing my game of the year from the short list created from my game of the month that I chose surprisingly enough each month!

Sadly I only started awarding that back in March so I will have to go back and look at what games I played in January and February and choose a winner for those months.

By awarding a game of the month, I have done a lot of the work already in narrowing down the field for my game of the year. I do know that it won’t be easy picking a winner from that short list. There are some pretty awesome games there.

So have you chosen your game of the year already?