Victory at last

father son gaming, game night, Uncategorized

Last night Nath and I got to play a single game of 7 Wonders Duel after he got home from work, ate and showered. 


I’d started gathering science cards in the first age, and Nath managed to get a couple of military cards, while I’d grabbed one to counter that threat.

It was the second age that our individual plans started to take shape. 

Nath was definitely going for the military win, while grabbing blue victory point cards. I was grabbing science cards, and more or less pinning my hopes on that. 

I got two of the same science symbols so had my choice of the progress tokens. I took the one that added take another go to all my wonders. My next turn much to Nath’s amazement and I think disgust I completed all my wonders! Nath hadn’t done one yet and was now limited to just completing three.

I was pretty happy with my position. I had five science symbols, and I was building up a nice cash reserve. Nath had been chipping away on the military front, and despite a little push back on that front by me, was now sitting within four points of winning that way.

The third and final age, the science card I needed was out, plus a duplicate that could give me the win (allowing me to grab the progress token that acts as a science symbol). But there was also the military cards that Nath needed to get the win.

Nath managed to stop me getting the science cards I needed. My win condition was blocked. I started grabbing blue victory point cards in a desperate attempt to catch Nath up on that front.

Then Nath built the only card he needed, the one that gave him the pick of the progress tokens not used in this game. He chose the one that gave military cards one extra attack. Then he got to take the last military card a three pointer, which was now worth four to get the win.

We had two cards left before we went to points. Which I think Nath would have won also. 

A great first victory for Nath.

BTN July 2016

by the numbers, gaming stats

Wow another month has flown by. 

Twenty two games, sixty plays. That’s incredible. Two OP events (Star Realms and Netrunner) helped push these stats through the roof. 

Some old and new favourites got to the table. Although I’d liked to have got Guilds of London back to the table, and played more The Voyages of Marco Polo. 

With Biblios Dice and Valley of the Kings seeing daylight, two more games make it off the pile of shame. Plus they didn’t disappoint.

July saw six brand new games getting played. Five of them in my collection. 

In all a very successful month I think. Despite none of pile of shame five not making it to the table.

Let’s look at the pretty graph showing the trend.

Wow! hey? The number of games played kind of continued the plateau I’d reached. Good grief I didn’t think I’d ever beat the high of March/May for number of plays. But holy heck this month smashed it. I’ll never ever improve on this months figure. 

My game of the month…

So this month I think my choice for my game of the month has to be between Qwixx and 7 Wonders Duel. 

Qwixx as I pointed out yesterday is a great gateway game, easy and quick to teach. And it also fills that gap of quick filler game wonderfully. Plus I think when it comes to throwing a bag of games together to take for a Costa gaming session, Qwixx will be an instant addition along with Love Letter Batman.

However I think 7 Wonders Duel has to be my game of the month. It’s such a great two player game. It has lots of replay ability, no two games are the same. It’s joined Star Realms and Netrunner in my top three two player games. Look how it hooked Nath yesterday. I don’t see how this can’t be game of the month.

Worst game of the month…

This was a close one too. My candidates for this infamous award are Dalek Dice and Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. 

I think the one that definitely takes this unwanted title has to be the unfulfilling Dalek Dice. An unnecessary over complicated push your luck dice game, that should have kept it simple. Just doesn’t measure up to Zombie Dice.

Father and Son Two Player Gaming Sunday

father son gaming, Uncategorized


With a snappy post title like the above I bet you guessed I’m down visiting Nath. Which means Father/Son gaming (well when he’s not working).

Our scarce time together means we have to have to be “selective” in what we play. No epic marathon games here. We are talking a maximum of an hour to play. So I’d bought Imperial Settlers, Roll for the Galaxy, Run Fight or Die, 7 Wonders Duel, Epic, Magic duel decks, Qwixx and Star Wars Timelines, with me.

While Nath was working Kate popped round with a spare house key for me to use. In return I introduced her to Pokemon Go (we even visited a couple of local poke-stops), followed by teaching her Qwixx.

Qwixx is proving a great popular gateway game! It really has been enjoyed by everyone I’ve shown it to. Kate was no exception. I should point out Kate is not a gamer, Nath taught her Star Realms once. But that is about it as her experience of “modern” hobby gaming goes.

After playing our introductory game of Qwixx, Kate asked if she could borrow it over night. That’s a “I like this” if ever I saw/heard one. And yes I let Kate borrow Qwixx.

After Nath got back from work, and we scoffed some food, Nath’s copy of Star Realms hit the table. We were playing basically everything that had been released thrown into one deck – excluding the majority of the year one promos (but the Hero Realms Kickstarter is closing that gap).

Our first game was a fairly easy victory for Nath. Nothing memorable about except he kicked my butt.

Game two saw my come back. One of my gambits allowed me to get rid of my vipers on turn one, so I was just drawing econ cards.

I had a nice bases strategy going. I had two copies of one of the Colony Wars Trade Federation bases that each gave me two gold to spend each turn. However get a third base out with them and each gave me four authority and allowed me to draw a card. Tie this in with an Embassy Yacht you can be drawing four cards on a turn, plus getting eleven authority, and six gold to spend! That’s insane!!! And I got that combo firing more than once during our game.

In the end I was in the eighties for my authority when I destroyed Nath to go even on wins.

A tie breaker was needed.

It all started so well. Nath had the black market gambit card which gave him exclusive buys at a reduced cost. Boy did that work for him. It kept filling up with one cost cards, which meant they were free! I just thought “great, keeping spamming your deck with cheap cards, that will water his deck down nicely.”

It wasn’t long before I had Nath on the ropes and down to seven authority. My bases were doing a good job protecting me, I was keeping his bases out of play, my authority was in the sixties. It was looking good. If only I had been able to deliver that killing blow of seven authority, but the cards had decided against that.

In fact the cards had then decided to be kind to Nath, his authority crept up, while mine plummeted down. In the end Nath was able to destroy my galactic empire. But it had been an epic struggle. My bases and outposts had posed a formidable wall that had held off the onslaught for a long time. But once they crumbled it was over.

That victory gave Nath the over all win also, beating me 2-1.

After that draining third match we had a short break. A break really was needed.

Time to teach 7 Wonders Duel. We know what I think of this game, but would Nath enjoy it?

We used the suggested starting wonders for a first game. It made sense, Nath wouldn’t know what is good or bad in a draft.

Our first game actually went to points. The first time I’ve had a game get to this. It actually finished pretty close really, with me winning 52 points against Nath’s 46 points.

“Can we play again?” Nath asked. Wow a sure sign he liked it I think.

Some games just turn on one moment in time during the game. Our second game had such a moment. In the second age I was three points of being defeated by Nath with a war victory. Two cards left, the last one being a war card that I couldn’t stop Nath getting. If he got it, game over.

I had the wonder that allowed me to install a card from the discard pile for free when completed. Early in the round Nath had discarded my glass production card and I’d been planning to use this wonder to fish that back. But now I had to complete it and hope I could find a solution to save my skin in the discard pile. As luck would have it there was. A two shield thingy war card was in the pile. I installed that, moved the counter back two spaces. That was all I needed to do, I couldn’t die now when Nath took the remaining card.

From there Nath wasn’t able to recover in the final age. A points victory for me was assured.

“Another game?” I’m beginning to think Nath likes the game as much as I do.

Our third game saw me win with a scientific victory. Nath hadn’t spotted I had built up a nice collection in the first age. At the end of the second age I was one science symbol away from victory. I had no other plan, if it went to points I’d lose, and Nath was pushing a military win.

I dealt out the cards for the third age, the final science card I needed was in the first row dealt, so would be reached last. More than enough war cards were coming out to Nath’s delight.

The last two cards were placed. One of the the science cards I needed was one of the two cards. But who was going first? It was my choice being the weaker military side. Oh I think I’ll go first then. Science wins!

Phew that could so easily have gone Nath’s way. Luck if the draw again!

Nath wanted to play again, boy is he living this game. Sadly it was late now and being an old man I was really tired. So we called it a night there.

But some great memorable games played this evening.

Out Next Week WS1Aug16

news

I've not done one of these for a few weeks, mainly because there has been very little out that has been of interest or grabbed my attention. As I said in a previous post it's the lull before the GenCon Storm that is next week.

With FFG announcing the app crippled second edition of Mansions of Madness at the end of last week, I was surprised to see that it's hitting the shelves of your FLGS next week. I'm glad I'm not intending to buy this albatross because it's going to set you back £93. So for a hundred quid you can get the game, a kebab and a can of pop!

FFG with the second item to catch my eye this week, and one I'm more likely to buy. Well ok I will buy, because I can use them to play with Nath. Oh what is it? They are releasing the two 2015 World Championship decks that the 2015 World Champion used. I'm going to treat these like Magic duel decks.

Finally one of the hottest games of the year will hit the shelves, having only just reached its Kickstarter backers, and that's Scythe from Stonemaier Games. The Collectors edition of this is going for around £100 at the moment with its pimped out components. So £60 isn't looking too bad. Compare it with that app crippled monstrosity Mansions of Madness, and it looks a bargain. Although I want Cry Havoc more, this is a close second.

Well that's the stuff that has caught my eye from the Asmodee Borg Collective controlled Esdevium. Don't forget 12% of these prices is due to Brexit. What's caught your eye for next week?

 

FEG@TA 29Jul16

FEG@TA, Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized

It was a mini meet up this evening, a kind of pre-con aperitif so to speak. What con? The yearly Madhouse Minicon held by Madhouse UK that run a turn-based fantasy game. 

Ok due to the continuing knock on effect on my social plans from two/three weeks ago, I wasn’t going to be spending the weekend at the minicon. This weekend if the plans work out will be spent gaming with Nath.

Debbie, myself and Lucus started our evening of gaming off with Dalek Dice. I won. But still think I prefer Zombie Dice to this.

Afterwards some con attendees arrived. So while Jamie introduced them to Dalek Dice, Lucus and I played Magic the Gathering using a couple of dueling decks. In our first game Lucus was just unable to get any creatures out to defend himself or to attack. He had land,in fact enough to summon creatures. Sadly it was all swamp, and he needed water! So I was able to happily field creatures and swing away at will. 

We swapped decks. And things went much better for Lucus. He was able to get some creatures out to attack with, and even inflict damage. However by that time in the game I had enough out on the battlefield to get me another win.

I like dueling decks. Magic without the collectable element. You can just play a game with two “evenly” pre-built decks and have fun. I do enjoy the deck building side, it’s just my pocket can’t handle the full on booster collectable experience, or justify the expense because I don’t play it enough.

What was to be my final game of the evening was 7 Wonders Duel with Debbie. 

I like this game a lot. It really is a great two player game. Which is why I think this has been the third week in a row this has managed to hit the table.

This game was particularly close and came down to the last card of the third age. If Debbie had gotten to the card first we would have had to start counting victory points. Which was going to be a hard one to call. I had nearly thirty coins, would have had ten victory points from the war track. But Debbie had a lot of cards giving victory points in front of her. 

However we didn’t get to that scenerio of points counting. The last card was mine. A war card doing three attack. Which gave me the instant war victory. It doesn’t get closer than that. Well maybe winning by one victory point. 

I think out of four games now, none have come down to points. They have all been instant wins split evenly somehow between war and science. 

Still love this game. 

But that was it. I was flagging. Strider had been sick in the night, and had been in and out for over an hour before hand. I think he was feeling sick but just couldn’t be during that time. So I was really knackered. I had started to drift off earlier in the afternoon! Debbie had also decided she was going to head off. The place was starting to build up with con attendees. Not much gaming at that point, more social, renewing friendships stuff.

This last photo shows how I finished off the evening. Yep stuffing lots of questionable meat into my face!

Start selling your organs

news, Uncategorized

Next week sees Gen Con taking place. Where publishers will be vying for the publics attention with over priced stands, and sneak peaks at games about to be released, along with the obligatory big news announcements to try and grab the attention of those unable to attend.

However FFG are getting a jump start on the competition and their sister companies in the Asmodee collective by releasing what seems like almost daily or every other day news announcements about their upcoming roster of games and expansions.

Today FFG have decided that they haven’t got enough of our money and they want you to be selling organs as well.


They are going to be turning you into gaming junkies with their new collectable dice game Star Wars Destiny.

At first reading I instantly thought Star Wars dice masters. But after skim reading the article it also has a card/deck building element. So must go watch the videos etc later after I’ve done some gaming this evening.

The game hits your FLGS or “dealer” as they now be known in November.

Here is the official announcement

Utter madness…

rant

So FFG (part of the Asmodee all assimulating collective) announced the other day Mansions of Madness 2.0 or second edition.

Why would I mention this fact here? It's not as if I've played the first edition or such a big fan I'm always playing the game and talking about it.

What bought it to my attention and guaranteed I will never buy the game, just as I will never buy Portal Games up coming game First Martians, no matter how good the game is, that the game has an integral app that means you can't play the game without the app.

I have in the past talked about this very subject. I'm a fan of companion apps that add to the experience, or replace some functionality of the game, but the game can still be played with out the app. It's not needed.

As soon as you can only play the game with the app, I'm out. The publisher will not be seeing me opening my wallet and parting with hard earned cash to purchase their game. I'll happily play the game (at least once) if some other sap has been fooled into parting with their cash for a “magic bean”.

Already one of my points has been made, Golem Arcana a miniatures game that relies on an integral app to play is no longer being supported. No new expansions, no app updates. That's it. Done, finished.

“The most recent code-update from the end of 2015 is the final state of the App, representing our best foot forward for supporting as many iOS and Android devices and operating systems as possible at that time. We recognize that there are still many minor bugs and sometimes unexpected behavior, and that future devices or OS updates may create additional bugs.“

So as the above quote from the Arcana Golem publisher admits, they are aware of and make similar if not the same points I've made in the past.

I'll give another example, Lords of Waterdeep the app. Still being sold on the App Store for £4.99, hasn't been updated for a year if I remember correctly. On my iPhone 6s unplayable, start a game with AI players, finish a round, before the game can start the second round it restarts the game at round one with a new secret id, as if you are just starting the game again. On my iPad it plays fine, no problem. The difference? My iPhone is on iOS 9.3.3 while the iPad is on 9.3.2!

This demonstrates one of my points. It can not be assumed that the publisher/developer will always provide updates, and that the app will always work. Maintaining a program is an overhead. A costly overhead. Have these companies factored this in? Are they prepared to keep this app updated at least on a yearly bases for a minimum of five years? Why five years? I plucked the number out of the air, and thought that would be a minimum a gamer should expect the publisher/developer to keep the app going. Arcana Golem didn't even make that (coming out in 2014).

But hey as you can probably guess I feel passionately about this. Oh well my words on this little niche blog with its small but exclusive readership won't change a thing, or cause the likes of Eric Lang and Ignacy Trzewiczek to rethink the issue. Heck why would they listen to me? The Dice Tower crew and their stable mates from the various podcasts and YouTube shows carry far more weight than here.

But I'll keep shouting about this and how it's like the Emperors new clothes. Luckily I like the sound of my own voice!

Stand up and take a bow

tabletop, Uncategorized

Following on from my recent post where I named and shamed my worse customer support experience. Here is my shouting from the roof tops my praise for great customer support. 

The following companies truly get customer support. 


All I can say is that both times that I had to contact AEG to get replacements for damaged or missing bits from games I’d bought second hand, AEG have stepped up and sent replacements. Both times my expectations were I had to pay, well it wasn’t their fault. But each time AEG generously replaced for the bits for free.

But this isn’t the reason why I’m shouting their praise. No they responded quickly to my emails, and had the replacement bits in the post quickly. That quick response can’t be over looked. I’m still waiting to hear from Fun Forge three weeks and counting since my last chaser email.


A small company but a really amazing level of customer support. Not only did the guy respond quickly to my email (while he was on vacation) but had the missing bit in the post and in my grubby mitts within a week! This really did take my breath away. 


A very slick, professional service using a call tracking system. Not the fastest response times compared to the two above, but still within acceptable time limits. But they did keep to within the deadlines they set for getting things resolved. I kind of felt this was the less personal of the contacts with the support departments. But still they did the Biz.

At first I thought this one was going to be a problem. Free delivery of replacement cards in the US but not to rest of world!

But after a rant it turns out they were only asking for a contribution to postage. Well that could have been communicated better. 

However still, quick responses and quick delivery won the day. 

An honourable mention…


I love Portal games but somehow gremlins are conspiring to sabotage this. What saves Portal is that they get social media, respond quickly, and try and resolve issues quickly. My only real issue is that stuff posted by them seems to take longer than other companies.

But still it’s hard to be angry with such a lovable company. Especially when they appear to working so hard to solve the issues. 

I’d love to hear about your support issues.

The case of the tin soldier 

Fenland Gamers, game night, Uncategorized


Last night four of the most promising detective minds in the kingdom gathered to solve the second case in Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective, the case of The Tin Soldier.

With the combined intellect of an amoeba it would seem we totally failed to solve this case. We had picked up the importance of one or two clues. However our theory was so wrong, just like the Parliamentary Labour Party and its contempt for democracy and its party members.

I’m very undecided about this game. It does seem to rely on the fact you pick up on the slightest of clues to be able to successfully solve the cases. With much reliance on you chasing red herrings, and running down many rabbit holes.

I don’t know even in the cold light of day, having slept on it, and attempted two cases now, and writing the above short paragraph. I think I’m falling down on the side of not being a big fan of the game.

It will be interesting to compare this to say Time Stories once I get that to the table. 

My failed weekend

Uncategorized


If you are a geek/nerd of any kind you can’t have missed all the coverage of the annual geekfest known as Comic Con held at San Diego this weekend.

This is the place all the areas of geek culture such as comics,movies,tv, collectables, toys, cosplay gather to celebrate all things geeky.

In reality it’s a load of media companies vying for attention and approval of what at best be described as desperately needy fanatical geeks.

To grab that all important stamp of approval and get that oh so important buzz for whatever “product” they are whoring out at the con. The marketing departments enter into a geek version of an arms race, dragging out actors (the bigger the name the better) from the shows/movies to perform like dancing bears on stage in the form of panels. They also have “exclusive” clips for those lucky enough to get into the packed hall to see the performing actors. Which somehow find their way onto the Internet afterwards, either officially or unofficially.


If comic book guy from the Simpsons died this is the heaven he would go to.

Due to my weekend getting totally borked. I ended up not seeing Nath (that’s next weekend now), missing the Imperial Assault organised play at my FLGS The Hobbit Hole, and sitting in front of my TV with the fan on watching Comic Con coverage between episodes of Deep Space Nine on Netflix. It got so bad that when I was buying tickets for the opening night of Suicide Squad yesterday, I bought a ticket for Star Trek Beyond for this morning.

I have to say there have been some great trailers for movies coming out. And yes the Suicide Squad ones are getting me excited despite that awful looking Joker.

The teasers for Wonder Woman, and Justice League looked good. I particularly liked the Justice League one.

The trailers/teasers for the upcoming Netflix Marvel shows look awesome. Not long for Luke Cage, the Defenders didn’t show much, but the Iron Fist gave a first look but no clue to the tone. It was confirmed Daredevil series three and a Punisher series.

Love the look of Dr Strange in the new trailer, which now starts to show the use of magic. Captain Marvel had its casting announced for the titler character of Brie Larson, and it’s logo revealed. 

Love the trailers for the returning DC tv series, like Arrow, The Flash.

There were some “sizzle reels” (read we haven’t finished the movie yet, but needed something to show you so we can build buzz) shown for the likes of Guardians of the Universe volume two.


Even despite all that riveting coverage of companies going “me,me,pick me” I did make it out in this excessive heat not only to see the new Star Trek, but also to Costa to enjoy a caramel latte cooler, and a read of the latest Retro Gamer with a slice of cake. 

So that was my weekend, no gaming, lots of geeky stuff.