Another life update so soon?

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

Wow what a last few days.

I’ve had a stinking cold that has really taken it out of me. It’s been a real struggle going to work. I’ve definitely not been 100%, maybe 50% at best. Which has really drained me by the end of the shift. I’ve spent so much time sleeping and coughing.

The last thing I was feeling able to do was a brief play of Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Luigi’s Mansion 3 before the cold kicked in.

I’m hoping the cold clears up in the next day or two.

Something board gaming related did happen this week. as predicted Apiary did arrive, along with the latest wave of Rolling Realms promo packs. Now I have the problem of how to fit those promo realms in the Rolling Realms box. It’s currently bursting at the seams with no room to spare.

No actual gaming took place due to my taking on an extra shift at work last Tuesday. We were short staffed on a shift and I said I’d go in to help out.

But next week I’m not going to miss the Tuesday lcg/ccg/tcg session. Then I just need to survive the week before having a week’s holiday. Much needed rest and hopefully some gaming.

Size of an elephant!

first look, Mario, nintendo, switch, video games

Super Mario Bros Wonder is the latest entry in the Mario franchise to hit the Switch.

I’m going to briefly summarise how I’m experiencing the game so that any first time readers will know where I’m coming from. Long time gluttons for punishment of this blog can skip this part as you will be very familiar with it by now.

How I’m Experiencing Super Mario Bros Wonder

I’m a Switch Lite owner so will naturally be playing the game on that.

When I’m playing the game at home I will be using the inbuilt speakers of the Switch Lite to listen to the audio. However any game play away from home will use my usual setup of VANKYO C750 Bluetooth active noise cancelling headphones. Which are over ear, Hi-Fi Stereo, and apparently deep bass.

I bought the physical version of the game, and there were no day one updates.

These days I’m not a spend hours in a single session playing a video game person. It’s more casual. Along the lines of pick up play for 30 minutes to an hour. Depending on how tired I am, and how much free time I have.

As the image below shows I’ll be playing a single player game as Mario.

I’m playing as Mario, naturally!

Mario and I go way way back…

Welcome back longtime sufferers…

I do get excited when new Mario games come out or are announced.

The maths might not be exact. But for approximately four fifths of my long lifetime I’ve been playing Mario games of one kind or another over the years. Starting with his supporting role as Jumpman in the game that started it all Donkey Kong.

That makes it sound like I’ve played a lot of Mario games. But in reality it’s more like I’ve dipped in and out of them. I think it’s best described as old friends that keep bumping into each other over the years. My main Mario gaming being his handheld outings. That was my Nintendo console of choice especially during my married years. Most of my gaming was handheld based on my daily commute on the train. I was aware of Mario’s transformation to 3D on the GameCube as my sons played the various releases and I saw them playing them.

However parental duties and any free time left after that gladly spent with my ex-wife meant I missed so many GameCube classics that also included Mario’s outings on the platform.

This was repeated for the Wii also.

I have played some of Mario’s outings on the Switch. Sadly they should be best described as brief visits. Although I did get pretty far in the Rabbids game.

But now I’m back with Super Mario Bros. Wonder on the Switch.

The devils in the details

Super Mario Bros Wonder is a 2D scrolling platform game. From my limited play so far it has all the things you’d expect in a Mario 2D platformer plus new twists. I love the mix of the familiar and the new.

Whilst playing a Mario game you can’t help but have a big wide grin on your face. It’s the little things that Nintendo put in to each level that are a delight and a pleasant surprise.

And Nintendo hit the ground running on that front. Whether it’s from changing Mario into elephant Mario so early on in the first level (amazing decision btw), to the musical blocks that play notes as you run across them, to the green pipes moving along like caterpillars. I adored the singing and walking Piranha Plants on the second level. Such Willy Wonka vibes. I didn’t want to leave the level.

I’m not sure what direction these posts about the game will take. They aren’t reviews, more this is my experience playing the game and past experiences that playing takes me back to. Like all my video game posts are. There are lots of great reviews out there for the game. I most definitely have nothing new to add to that space. Besides do you need a review to know if you are going to get the game? You already know if you are a Mario fan and enjoy 2D platformers. If that is the case you already have the game.

Finally did you get the reference in the posts title? It’s something Bez ,the Beast from the Arabian Knights cartoon (shown during the Banana Splits Show) said before changing into an elephant. Which I thought was apt for this new Mario game where he can become an elephant.

Super busy but surviving

life, the universe, and everything, still alive

It’s been a day or two since my last post. As usual for these silences not much gaming wise has happened. Work is still dominating life at the moment.

Board game wise Apiary is due to start be posted out to Stonemaier Champions next week. So excited about that. It’s been a bit unusual for Stonemaier to have such a delay between the pre-order going live and the games being sent out. But as Jamey explained in this weeks Facebook Live broadcast it was tied in with Essen and having units on sale there. I think that’s sums up the thinking.

I did get the latest (as in came out in September) Marvel Champions campaign box NeXt Evolution and the two wave 7 character packs Angel and Psylocke. Plus I have the XL GameGenics playmat for the game now too.

Don’t know if I mentioned it previously but I did get in the Fellowship of the Ring Saga for Lord of the Rings lcg. That’s to play with Nathan, and potentially the lcg/ccg/tcg group at Fenland Gamers. I should see if there is a playmat for this too that is similar the Marvel Champions I just got.

I have two new video games for the Switch that just arrived. Well earlier in the week Luigi’s Mansion 3 arrived. Then yesterday Super Mario Bros. Wonder came out. So expect initial posts on those games soon.

Then finally somehow during all the work I need to get on with reorganising my home. It’s an ongoing project.

So that’s where life is at the moment.

A multiplayer experience

dice masters, Dicemasters, game night, lcg/ccg/tcg game night

Last night was our weekly lcg/ccg/tcg night at Fenland Gamers.

We would once again be drafting Dice Masters. But this time using the Dark Phoenix Saga display box (contains 8 draft boosters) that I picked up for £40 off eBay.

The Dark Phoenix Saga Display Box

Which was a bloody bargain. These retail at £80 plus usually. So being able to pick one up so cheaply was not an opportunity I would be turning down.

Hopefully I can get a bargain Secret Wars to draft in the future.

Our session was attended by Dave, his friend Zack, and myself.

Zack had not played the game before but was familiar with MtG. So we had a learning game where I cracked open a draft booster (I’d not included the two origin packs this time). I chose a couple of basic action cards, and a couple characters for each of us to learn with. With Dave helping/advising him, Zack and I played a greatly cut down game of Dice Masters.

Zack picked the game up quickly, helped by his MtG experience.

After the game we cracked open three draft boosters and commenced to draft our cards.

The teams lined up as follows:

My Team

  • Psylocke: Telepath
  • Kitty Pryde: Right of Passage
  • Lilandra: Politician
  • Corsair: Recruiting a Crew
  • Mister Sinister: Biologist
  • Professor X: Uncanny Leadership
  • Storm: Cloud Cover
  • Rogue: Mrs. X

Zack’s Team

  • Professor X: House of X
  • Wolverine: Pure of Heart
  • Iceman: Frozen Fists of Fury
  • Storm: Extreme Weather
  • Angel: Wings Over the World
  • Bishop: Tortured Timeline
  • Blink: Skilled Combatant
  • Cable: I’ll Do This All Day

Dave’s Team

  • Corsair: Criminal Record
  • Toad: Looking for Comradery
  • Gladiator: Psi Resistance
  • Colossus: Skilled Painter
  • Blob: Depowered from M-Day
  • Master Mold: Targeting Mutants
  • Bishop: I’m Back!
  • Lilandra: Politician

Basic Action Cards

  • Mutation (randomly selected from discarded cards)
  • Making the Team (Zack’s choice)
  • Power Bolt (my choice)
  • Lab Test (Dave’s choice)

Which Multiplayer format did we go with?

The multiplayer format we went with was Hunter (see yesterday’s post for a description of it and others). I thought this would be the easier format to go with having a new player with us.

Each of us chose a basic action card from the ones we drafted to go in the middle as a common pool, plus a fourth was chosen randomly from the remaining discarded basic action cards.

We also went with the first player handicap for everyone but the last player on their first turn.

I really liked this format. I hadn’t played Hunter before in Star Realms. So had no idea what to expect!

My new dice tower

This format does force some hard decisions on you. You want to swing in and hit your opponent on the left. But at the same time not wanting to leave yourself wide open to an attack from the person on your right.

It was a delicate balancing act that was not easy to pull off.

In our game I did get an initial free hit at Dave who was on my left. And then after that chipped him away with a Power Bolt. Which was how I knocked him out. Freeing my attack phase up for getting in a sneaky unblockable attack on Zack.

But in the later half of the game I started making purchases that’d allow me to deal with Zack’s scary team. Wolverine and Ice Man were not a nice pairing.

That planning may have been for nothing if Zack had rolled better and been a bit more aggressive.

But in the end I ended up victorious.

Yeah I thought Dice Masters worked as a multiplayer game. Can’t wait to try the other variants that I covered.

Multiplayer games of Dice Masters.

dice masters, Dicemasters

At the moment our next Dice Masters session at the end of the month is going to be a three player event.

Which means we can still draft from the pauper cube or use the Dark Phoenix draft packs that I ordered.

However I’m not keen on having one person sitting out watching whilst the other two are playing a game of Dice Masters with their drafted team.

So my thoughts went to what about a multiplayer game of Dice Masters?

I know that there are official rules for Dice Masters Doubles. But it’s not really an option for just three players.

Ideally I want this to play similar to Commander, or one of the Game Night kits in MtG. Maybe even Vampire the Masquerade Rivals.

The other limitation is that whatever ideas I come up (borrow more like)

with they will support 3 or 4 multiplayer games only. Scaling above this becomes a major headache and I think the downtime between turns becomes too long and makes the game boring. If there are more players split into pods of 3 or 4.

Basic action cards

The first issue that is unique to Dice Masters compared to similar games are the basic action cards.

Which ever of the multiplayer format ideas I have below this bit should be the same for them all.

I’m thinking each player puts out one basic action card. If there are only 3 players a fourth basic action card is selected randomly from a discard pile (if the players have been drafting) or the remaining basic action cards from each player are shuffled together and a random one selected.

Determining First Player

I like using the bgstat app to randomly select the first player. However some might like to be more traditional and let the dice decide with the sidekick roll off.

Whichever way you choose determine a first player for all of these formats below.

Free for all

The Game Night kit uses regular 60 card MtG decks and is a free for all. It’s fun and is the easiest to implement. That’s why the deckbuilder Star Realms also suggests this in their multiplayer rules.

Baring in mind that there might have to be adjustments for turn order for the first turn (see below).

This is a last person standing format.

There are no limitations on who you can attack/target. You can also attack multiple opponents at once! So you could have 2 dice attacking one opponent, and a sidekick attacking the other for instance.

Rivals

This format is based on Vampire the Masquerade Rivals.

Vampire the Masquerade Rivals was designed to be a multiplayer game from the start. It actually has in my opinion a cool mechanic for choosing a rival who you need to defeat to win the game. And it is this mechanic that we will be borrowing.

For this format you will need four tokens numbered 1 to 4.

We will then chose our rival for the game as the Vampire the Masquerade Rivals rules describe below.

“Randomly determine who goes first and give them the ‘1st Player’ token. Each player has a number based on where they are sitting. The player with the ‘1st Player Token” is Player 1. The player to their left is Player 2, etc.

…

In a 3p game, grab Rival tokens 1_3. In a 4p game, use tokens 1_4.

Place the tokens face down in the middle of the table and mix them up. Starting with player 1 and continuing clockwise, each player in turn grabs a token and flips it over. If you grab a token with your player number on it, grab a new one and then throw yours back in face down and mix them up again.

When there are 2 players yet to
grab a token, if either of their numbers have not been
revealed by the earlier players, flip the remaining
tokens over and each player who doesn’t have a
token grabs one that isn’t their own.

This prevents these players from being left with their own token.
Compare your token to the turn order (clockwise from player 1). The player whose number is on your token is your Rival for the game. So if you grab token #2, your Rival is player #2—the player one seat clockwise from player 1.” Vampire the Masquerade Rivals Rulebook page 4

The other rule we will borrow and modify from Vampire the Masquerade Rivals is “IMPORTANT: You cannot attack vampires controlled by a foe who has yet to take their first turn.” This will be changed to:

IMPORTANT: You cannot attack a player who has yet to take their first turn.

To win a game in this multiplayer format you need to defeat your rival, ie knock their health down to zero.

If another player defeats your rival then the player with the most health remaining wins. HOWEVER the player that holds the defeated players token gains 3 health (up to a maximum of 20 health).

Hunter

I’ve borrowed the name and format from Star Realms.

This is also a last person standing format.

In Hunter you can only attack/target the person sitting to your left .

If the player on your left is knocked out, then the next player to your left can now be targeted/attacked.

First player advantage and handicaps

I know in Dice Masters we have the first player rule in place that they roll four sidekicks and one of them gets placed in the Used zone. Which I like as a rule to get round the first player advantage. And games like MtG have similar mechanisms in place.

However in multiplayer games of MtG whether it’s Commander or the Game Night kit the rule of the first player not drawing a card at the start of their first turn does not apply.

In Star Realms they do have handicaps in place for their multiplayer formats.

But do we need handicaps in place for a multiplayer Dice Masters game?

I’m tempted to go with yes, and have the current first player handicap apply to all players except the player going last.

Obviously this needs LOTS of play testing. And I’d be really interested in the thoughts and experiences of others on this subject.

So those are my thoughts on possible multiplayer formats for Dice Masters.

They are formats I will be trying with my gaming groups when we get a chance to get Dice Masters to the table on our weekly lcg/ccg/tcg game night. Which appears to be this evening now!

Let me know if you have tried any of the above, how you got on, what worked and what you would change.

A Dark Draft Format For Dice Masters

dice masters, Dice Masters Cube, Dicemasters

In Epic the Card Game Wise Wizard Games (WWG) came up with a draft format for two players called Dark Draft.

The following are the rules for a Dark Draft by WWG.

  • “Shuffle a stack of at least 120 cards. Deal 5 to each player.
  • Each player takes 1 card out of their hand of five cards and drafts it, then passes the other 4 to the other (at the same time).
  • Each player takes 2 cards out of their new hand of four cards and drafts them, then discards the remaining two cards into a shared face-down discard pile.
  • Both players now have drafted three cards. Repeat nine times to get to a 30-card deck, shuffle and play.”

WWG finish by describing this draft format as “…a fun, fast, and skill-testing draft format for two players.”

I like this format because it gives that bit of mystery during the draft of you know what you handed over to your opponent. However you don’t know what they kept and what was discarded. So you have partial information.

My current thinking is take the 48 card cube I’ve created and use that as the stack to shuffle and deal the cards from. I’m also still using just two dice per card as per official draft packs.

I still want to have that team building element.

The way I see this working is starting with the basic action cards being drafted.

I can’t see this phase of the draft being anything other than a single draft round. It’s also the phase I think might need tweaking the most.

So each player gets dealt 5 basic action cards. Select one and pass the rest to the other player. Both players then select two basic action cards and discard the remaining two to a discard pile facedown.

Now onto the meat of the dark draft.

This takes place over 4 rounds and at the end of it each player has 12 cards to build a team of 8 from.

Each round both players get dealt 5 cards. They choose one to keep and pass the rest to the other player.

Each player now has a hand of 4 cards. They choose two to keep and discard the remaining 2 cards face down to a discard pile.

This is repeated another three times. Giving each player 12 cards.

Once the players have built their teams, and chosen the two basic action cards to use, they reveal their teams and then recruit the dice required as per rainbow draft rules.

In summary this Dice Masters Dark Draft requires a minimum of 40 cards to draft from for the teams. Is drafted over 4 rounds. Giving each player 12 cards to build 8 a card team from. It also requires a minimum of 10 basic action cards to draft from. These are drafted over a single round and give each player 3 basic actions to choose a final two from.

I do like the idea of using the pauper cube I built (or any cube) for this. It gives enough cards to use, plus a little variety as the whole cube is not being used.

Obviously this hasn’t been tested yet. But it will be at the first opportunity I get with (most likely) Dave.

If you do get a chance to try this out please let me know how you got on and what you thought. Or even if you haven’t what you think of this idea anyway.

Testing the TMNT teams

dice masters, Dicemasters, game night

As well as testing the Marvel Pauper Cube I also got to test the two Turtles teams I built from the TMNT set I have.

Dave and I played two games with the two teams I had constructed.

Dave as per usual chose the forces of evil ie the Shredder deck. Whilst I used the Turtles deck.

The decks seemed to work fairly well.

However I still don’t like having to use Fugitoid in the Turtles team. But you can’t have two Splinters going by the team building rules. However I think that’s what they want you to do!

But in this game I’m obeying the team building rules. And only had one die on Fugitoid. Whilst Dave had the other two on his copy of the character.

We both won a game each.

I’ll definitely use these teams again.

What teams did you build with the set?

Testing my first pauper cube

dice masters, Dice Masters Cube, Dicemasters, game night

If you remember I wrote some thoughts on creating a cube for drafting in Dice Masters. Since then I created two cubes.

The first being a mashup of four draft packs I bought. Which will need some tweaking. It was fun to play. But it can be improved.

However I have created a second cube.

The cards for this cube were from the following two sets that I have.

I also just chose common cards from those two sets. Making this a Marvel pauper cube.

From those common cards I tried to make sure that only a small number were factionless, and that there were a variety of factions. So we have Villians, X-Men, Avengers, and Fantastic Four as our factions.

Here are the cards for this Marvel Pauper Cube:

Character Cards

  • Cyclops:Slim
  • Ant-Man:Biophysicist
  • Thing:Ever-Loving Blue-Eyed
  • Nick Fury:Mr. Anger
  • Sentinel:Mutant Hunter
  • Mystique:Unknown
  • Punisher:McRook
  • Pyro:Saint-John Allerdyce
  • Loki:Trickster
  • Hawkeye:Longbow
  • Storm:Weather Witch
  • Mister Sinister:Archvillian
  • Magik:Illyana Rasputina
  • Professor X:Recruiting Young Mutants
  • Doctor Octopus:Megalomaniac
  • Iron Man:Upright
  • Deadpool:Assassin
  • Bishop:Omega Squad
  • Magneto:Former Comrade
  • Phoenix:Ms. Psyche
  • Black Panther:Wakanda Chief
  • Vision:Density Control
  • Black Widow:Natural
  • Colossus:Unstoppable
  • Red Hulk:Thunderbolt Ross
  • She-Hulk:Jennifer Walters
  • Apocalypse:Awakened
  • Scarlet Witch:Wanda Maximoff
  • Namor:The Sub-Mariner
  • Nova:Quasar
  • Green Goblin:Goblin Lord
  • Doctor Doom:Reed Richards’ Rival
  • Doctor Strange:Sorcerer Supreme
  • Toad:Tongue Lashing
  • Rogue:Anna Raven
  • Emma Frost:Archvillain
  • Marvel Girl:Telekinetic
  • Captain America:Special Ops
  • Sabretooth:Something to Prove
  • Spider-Man:Hero for Hire
  • Falcon:Samuel Wilson
  • Mr. Fantastic:Brilliant Scientist
  • Mystique:Ageless
  • Psylocke:Betsy Braddock
  • Professor X:Principal
  • Wolverine:Wildboy
  • Venom:Eddie Brock
  • Gambit:Ace in the Hole

Basic Actions

  • Gearing Up
  • Teleport
  • Ambush
  • Teamwork
  • Smash!
  • Rally!
  • Focus Power
  • Take That, Villian!
  • Selective Shield
  • Transfer Power
  • Invulnerability
  • Distraction

Remember: This is a 48 card cube that should support up to 4 players.

So how did it play?

I thought it worked just as well as using two draft packs.

These are the two teams that we drafted.

Dave’s Team

  • Nova: Quasar
  • Phoenix:Ms. Psyche
  • Pyro:Saint-John Allerdyce
  • Cyclops:Slim
  • Rogue: Anna Raven
  • Magik:Illyana Rasputina
  • Gambit:Ace in the Hole
  • Mr. Fantastic

Basic Actions

  • Gearing Up
  • Smash!

My Team

  • Falcon:Samuel Wilson
  • Nick Fury:Mr. Anger
  • Black Widow:Natural
  • Hawkeye:Longbow
  • Iron Man:Upright
  • Punisher:McRook
  • Spider-Man:Hero for Hire
  • Red Hulk:Thunderbolt Ross

Basic Actions

  • Focus Power
  • Selective Shield

From the draft we built teams that had some synergy and despite Dave dominating me with two wins to my one. They were fun games.

They were also three games where we both bought basic action dice. More so than any other games we’ve played in the past.

I want to see how this goes with four or three players.

I also had an idea to come up with a Dice Masters version of the Epic the Card Game Dark Draft format.

It’s a draft format that works really well for two players. But I’ll write more about it and how it might work in another post. I need to sleep on it and get it right in my head first before sharing.

Laters.

Getting Started in Dice Masters in Autumn 2023

dice masters, Dicemasters

I’ve returned to Dice Masters after a long break from the game. But some of the issues I have/had getting back into the game are the same as those wanting to get into the game for the first time.

So I thought I’d write this post sharing my thoughts and suggestions on getting into Dice Masters for new players.

In an ideal world some-one looking to get into Dice Masters will know some-one already into the game or can find some-one at their FLGS.

I’m assuming that the existing player would then teach the game and then set the new player up with some basics needed to play the game.

The basic new player kit I give to new players!

However we don’t live in an ideal world. If we did there would be no need for this post.

Getting the basics

So before we even start playing a game of Dice Masters a new player needs some basics that are required for every game.

Those are:

  • 8 sidekick dice
  • 2 different coloured basic action reminder cards and matching coloured basic action dice (3 per card). In an ideal world you’d have four.
  • Play mat
  • Dice bag

So how does a new player get these if there is not a generous existing player on hand to gift them these?

The easiest way is to pick up one of the two Secret Wars Origin packs.

Inside an Origin Pack

The only thing that these Origin packs don’t give you is a dice bag. But any dice bag will do for this. If you have to buy one they can be picked up cheap enough off Amazon or from your FLGS. The nice thing is even if you end up not continuing with Dice Masters the dice bag can be used with other games.

Picking up both Origin packs will give you everything (except dice bags) to play a learning game or two with a friend.

Another option is to pick up one of the older Starter sets. These do give you everything for two players to start playing with. Well almost! They do include the dice bag. Ok it’s a waxy paper bag. But it’s good enough for learning with. You can always splash out for a better bag later on. However there are no play mats (except in the rule booklet). But you can print these off using the play mat pdf that Wizkids have on their website. The advantage of the older starter sets is they have enough cards for both players to play with the full 8 card teams.

A third more expensive option is to pick up one of the campaign boxes. These are the more complete experiences for two players.

Turtles Campaign Box Contents

Which Starter or Campaign box should a new player go with? Pick the theme that attracts you the most. Love DC go with one of them. Like Warhammer pick up one of those.

Ok I have the basics and learnt the game, now what?

Once you’ve played some learning games it’s time to start building your collection and building teams.

You could buy older set booster boxes(some of these can be picked up for under £50 a box) or individual packs. Crack them open and start building teams. Or you could go with the draft packs of more recent sets and do the same.

Which of the two options above you go with depends on if you want to play Modern Age (uses just recent sets) or Golden Age (uses all sets) games.

However instead of just cracking open boosters or draft packs, why not with your friends play a draft tournament and get some extra game play out of your purchases? It also has the side benefit of building your team building skills.

Another option is to just buy singles. By this I mean just buying the card and dice that you need to build a particular team with. This is usually the cheaper option when building a team. However my experience of the secondary market in Dice Masters using eBay is not great. It’s not as healthy as say the much more popular MtG.

Obviously all this assumes that you have a friend who wants to learn the game as well. However if you don’t then you are then going to have to find a local Dice Masters community to join. Or failing that look to play online using a webcam. I’ve not looked into which is the best online community yet for doing that. I’m assuming it will involve joining a Dice Masters Discord server or two. It might also be worth joining a Dice Masters Facebook group for whichever geographical area you reside.

I hope this has helped. If you are an experienced player what have I missed?

It’s cold outside

game night, lcg/ccg/tcg game night

It was that one evening a week when I currently manage to get some gaming in once again.

This week finally (since I bought the game back in 2015) saw Arctic Scavengers hit the table. The edition I have comes with the base game, plus two expansions HQ and Recon.

Setting up a game

I had spent some time Monday configuring my copy of the game as an all in setup. Afterwards on the Fenland Gamers Discord channel for lcg/ccg/tcg games (I know Artic Scavengers is a deckbuilder) I asked Diego to bring his copy of the game so we could quickly and easily play a base game only.

When you look through the rulebooks (there are two in the box, one covers the base game and HQ expansion, the other just the Recon expansion) you are presented with the premise that the expansions are module and told which cards to add to include for the module. They then suggest the market has a particular unit plus 9 others to make up to 10 units to buy from. That gives you the impression that you can choose any other units etc. However if you go all in on the modules. You do not have that freedom of choice. You are basically not using any of the base games units.

But I do really like this kind of a la carte module choice during setup. Plus there are two or three modules that do not actually add cards to the game but change rules.

I also like that scattered through out the modules there are suggested setups for things like the contested resource deck, and suggestions on tweaking things.

A final word about setup of the game. The game comes with an insert that organises the cards and helps speed up the process of setting up. However it also means that cards warp/bend when stored this way as I found out Monday. A better solution would have been labelled card dividers but hindsight is a marvellous thing, especially some 8 years later.

Onto the game

Set in the near future of 2097 in an arctic post-apocalyptic world when humanity is struggling to survive and attract new tribal members from survivors. The theme of the game made me think of post-apocalyptic movies such as The Colony, and Snowpiercer, and even the board game Dead of Winter (without the zombies naturally). But did the theme come through as we played the game?

Diego, Marcin, Dave, and myself played the base game plus the gangs, leaders, and buildings modules thrown in.

The leaders each of us chose are below:

Our leaders

I liked the art it had the right tone for the theme. But did it help get the theme across?

On your turn you can go hunting which allows you to recruit new tribe members. You can go scavenging that allows you to go looking for useful items in the junkyard. Or you can take part in a fight with the other tribes for contested items like bigger groups of tribe members or more powerful items than can be found in the junkyard. But do these mechanics help get the theme across?

Now I’ve asked that question three times about theme without answering it. For me the theme seems paper thin. It’s hard to get the theme across in a deckbuilder. Without being told what the theme was you might guess it’s post-apocalyptic from the art.

The combat phase at the end of each round that took place from the third round onwards felt very Dune Imperium like. But I did like the combat. It gave you an interesting choice to make with your hand of five cards. How many did you save for the combat and how many did you use to do one or two of the other actions? Was that contested resource worth going all in for? Something only you knew when you became the initiator for the round. There is the bluffing element also, where you could save two cards that are useless in combat. But it makes the other players think about how many they commit. Maybe forcing them to do less action wise trying to beat you in combat.

The game itself is 16 rounds. With the contested items deck acting as the game timer. I like clever touches like this.

I liked the asymmetry that the leaders added to the game. We went with the default way of choosing our leader of being dealt two, pick one and discard the other. However in one of the two rulebooks there are a couple of alternate rules for picking them.

At the end of the game after the gangs went to the appropriate tribe, the dust settled and Marcin had amassed the most tribe members.

Final scores

I did enjoy Artic Scavengers. It was a fun experience. Just sad that it has taken so long to get to the table.

Another great evening gaming.

Next week Marvel Champions hits the table.