Defusing the bombs in Costa

coffee shop gaming, Fenland Gamers

It's been just over a month since the last Costa gaming session, so long over due. Yesterday saw myself, Jonathan and Debbie meetup at our local Costa in town to drink a hot beverage and play a game.

I arrived at the Costa first, and the place was very busy. I was lucky to get a table, sadly not one really suitable for us to use for gaming. So while waiting for the others I was waiting for a more suitable table to come free.

Debbie showed up not long after me, then Jonathan arrived last. While the other two were getting their beverage of choice (hot chocolate) a larger more suitable table came available. I quickly nabbed it, the table needed a wipe, the tray on it taking away. But hey we had a larger table, we could play now. Then a minute later an even larger table was free, and I nabbed that instead. This table was clean! And much more suitable for us.

Considering we were about to play Bomb Squad Academy , you could look at the table moving thematically as me searching for the bomb so we could start to defuse it.

By the time Debbie and Jonathan got back to the new table with their drinks I had set the game up ready for us to play.

Debbie hadn't played the game before, so a whistle stop summary of the rules and gameplay was given.

Debbie soon got the hang of the game and took an early lead, a lead she kept into the third and final round. I was trailing in last place, not by far, I think by only three points at one time.

However in the final round Debbie kept “copying” me, and we were sharing a lot of points because we kept going for the same coloured wire trying to score the pressure plates. While we were splitting the points, Jonathan took advantage of this and stole the victory from Debbie.

So with Jonathan victorious some brief boardgame talk took place, before we parted our ways, which saw me grabbing a hotdog from the dodgy meat seller on the marketplace.

New Additions 20/2/16

new arrivals

It's that time of week where I share my new arrivals on here, but if you know me on other social media outlets then you will have seen these photos during the week as they arrived.

Those cards from DriveThroughCards arrived at the start of the week. And boy was I impressed with the quality of the cards. Great prices, amazing quality. Can't go wrong. I'm thinking now that I will get the print and play cards for the time machine promo for Colt Express that a fan made done now. That would be really really cool.

I managed to get a real bargain on Council of Verona second addition from the Facebook Trading and Selling page. A second copy by a different seller appeared the next day for twice the price! I'd love to get the second expansion for the game, plus the spin off game, but for some reason the publisher has decided to make it nigh on impossible to get them in the UK. Which also goes for this game. I don't get that. Obviously making a living is against the publishers ethos.

My other two arrivals were also great deals from the Facebook Trading and Selling page.

The Lost Legacy was the game plus the three expansions in the single box. The seller hadn't included the two little storage bags that came with two of the expansions. So I've emailed AEG about how to go about getting the bags.

Eminent Domain a deck building game about building your space empire was also a really good bargain.

I should point out when these second hand games the first thing I do is check that everything is there. It's not that I distrust the seller, it's more for my piece of mind. If I didn't do it, the thought that something was missing would just eat away until I couldn't ignore it.

So that's this weeks new stuff.

 

New Next Week 22/2/16

news

It's that time of week where the UK branch of the Asmodee Borg collective Esdevium let us mortals know what presents from above we will be bestowed with, and allowed to buy.

As always this is what caught my eye, and is not everything they are distributing to stores next week.

First up is the Blessed vs Cursed Duel Decks for Magic the Gathering.

These are a great deal for those that are into “Magic lite”, who like playing but don't want to invest tonnes of money into the game.

There are also deck boxes and a two player playmat themed around this duel deck coming out at the same time.

Next up is one I'm really really excited about.

Tokaido is a beautiful looking game, and a game I love playing (needs to hit the table soon I think). So a chance to pimp it out with this official kit is really exciting. And just the excuse to get it back to the table.

Finally oh I've got to get this playmat.

Now you've seen it, I needn't say any more about it, it's bloody obvious why I want this.

 

A Pleasant Afternoon Gaming

magic, netrunner, tabletop

Despite loosing my two games of Netrunner this afternoon, which were a repeat of Tuesday's games where I won. I had a blast playing. I said previously that these are going to be my decks for the regional at the UK Games Expo. Yes my Corp deck will be seeing some work, but only after I've played it some more.

Now it's play, play, play, and learn how to play my decks properly. What cards do I need to hit early? How do I fair against the different factions? What's my best play when X happens?

Yes my opponents are playing “basic” decks with the odd data pack adding to their pool. As my results are showing their decks are still competitive.

So yes I lost today. But I learnt something whilst losing.

After my defeats, we played a couple of games of Magic the Gathering, allowing me to test my first constructed deck.

Our first game I was royally destroyed. I drew two lands, and that was it, I kept drawing creatures. So not able to do anything. Our second game I faired better and provided more of a challenge. I even landed damage on my opponent.

The afternoons gaming was rounded off with a game of Colt Express. I think this was my best score in the games I've played so far with 2600 points at the end. Which wasn't enough to win, but enough to get me second place.

So that's how I spent my first afternoon post my last official day in the office. Technically I'm still an employee for another sixteen working days. But they are holiday I was owed.

 

The Dark Knight Patrols The Streets of Commonville

Fenland Gamers, game night, play test
Last night saw a three player play test of The Streets of Commonville. Jo, Jonathan and myself donned our suits of blue and shields and once more pounded the pavement, uncovered evidence and “questioned” suspects to capture the wrong doer.
There had been some tweaks to the game for tonight's playtest. Some graphical like the addition of the cctv camera on the arrow counters to make them a bit more thematic. The player boards now had you controlling the upgrade from a choice of three, donuts (ability to pass a dice to another player, or reroll), another dice, or the ability to alter the value of a dice known as intuition.
Before play Jonathan made a quick adjustment to a dice that swapped the ability to get two minutes of time back to the ability of swapping an ability on your player board with one in the precinct. I did disagree with Jonathan on this, it meant the dice would give you that ability 50% of the time, and no way to get time back.
Below photo property of Jonathan
This was Jo's first time playing the game, and after a brief intro to the basics of the game, we were off fighting crime, fitting up innocent people, and eating our way through a tonne of donuts.
Early on in the game the Jonathan suspect token hit the board. It wasn't long before we were fitting him up with handcuffs and transferring him into his alter ego Dr Kinky.
Below Batman captures Dr Kinky.

The game still took an hour and half to play, and like previous play throughs didn't seem that long. That's the surprise of the game. There is virtually no down time, everyone is involved through out the game. I've pointed this out before in previous posts on the game, this fact alone I think is a big big positive of the game.

Another great play through.

 

Running Tuesday

chatteris warlords, game night, netrunner, Road to regionals

So my new improved Noise deck, got owned by Jamie and his NEH deck. Not sure I was playing “pancakes” right. Once Wyldside got trashed, does “pancakes” give me an extra click? (Done a check and no it doesn't, curses!) Our next match up this week will see my NEH deck take on which ever runner Jamie is currently playing.

In the evening once more I was at the Chatteris Warlords meetup.

There was a real variety of games being played last night. 7 Wonders was being played by Jonathan's children and friends along with a couple of members of the club. Later on there was a game of Betrayal At The House On The Hill, another table a game of 7 Wonders: Duels was going (the cards were smaller than I expected, we are talking around the same size as the damage cards in X-Wing, which is a popular size, just not your normal playing card size. Yet for a small box, and cards this game requires a lot of table space).

A game of Bolt Action was going on also. I enjoy what would at best be described as war game, miniatures lite, so games like Memoir '44, X-Wing, Battlelore. The more heavy games aren't for me. I don't want to be using a tape measure to move. The nearest I get is that little movement template you get in games like X-Wing. That's my limit. Plus a game of Wings of Glory was on the go.

My gaming last night at the club was two games of Netrunner, surprise, surprise.

First up my Noise deck against Jinteki Chronos Protocol. First blood went to my opponent scoring from an unprotected server he had setup on his first turn.

That was a good bluff, I had underestimated my opponent. I didn't think they would install an unprotected agenda.

After that I started scoring. My opponent was getting easier to read where he had installed agendas. With Faust and David out, parasite in my grip, incubator breeding nicely, the odds were in my favour. Archives had been left unprotected which I was able to use to great effect. Sadly all my runs on HQ were unproductive. But my runs on R&D and the remote servers were good feeding grounds. DDOS did its job nicely, and having two Same Old Things installed helped my recycle the Levy and I've Had Worse To great effect.

Round two saw my NEH deck up against Kate. Within two turns I had a Traffic Accident in my hand. I just needed to start landing some tags. I was iced up, set some traps that could be advanced. Although my opponent managed to avoid one with a Infiltration. The one he did trigger I was one advancement token short of the desired effect I wanted.

With City Surveillance installed the drip drip drain of the runners credits started, it was that or take a tag. Once I landed a tag (which I think I did with a ghost branch) that was it, the gateway was open. Our agenda scoring was back and fourth, we were pretty even. The Franchise City hit like a dream when the runner scored an agenda.

I scored a Chronos Project too early for my liking, but still took out some cards from the runners heap from the game.

I had hidden an agenda in archives, well I had to, there was no other option. My archives was unprotected, and there was no way I was going to ice it up to protect it. That would have been like putting a great big sign up saying “hey look at me, something valuable is here”.

The runner did a run on my City Surveillance, and trashed it. Which was nice because that was a costly run for them and left them short of credits. How did I follow that up on my turn? I installed another City Surveillance!!

Agenda wise we were even, the runner decided to stop avoiding tags, and got upto four tags. I checked how many cards they had in hand. Then I drew a Scorched Earth. Click one, played Traffic Accident, two meat damage. Click two, played Scorched Earth, four meat damage, for the kill and the win.

I was happier with the way this NEH deck had worked. It's still not there. But it needs more play now.

Tuesday I'm calling the start of my Road to Regionals. These are the two decks I'm going to be taking. They need more work, especially NEH, although I'm a lot happier with Noise at the moment.

Pandemic Legacy March

Fenland Gamers, game night, pandemic legacy season 1

Once more I issue the mandatory warning that this post may or may not contain spoilers for Pandemic Legacy. If you wish to avoid any possible spoilers stop reading now, and I'll see you in the next blog post.

Right now they have gone let's begin…

Last night saw the rescheduled play of the month of March that was meant to happen last week, but got cancelled due to illness with one of the team.

Funny enough three of the team were this week infected with some form or other of the lethal man flu (or in the case of Debs just a minor cold). Mind you I've had this cough, chesty thing since just before Christmas. It just might be time to see the doc about it.

Back to the game, before deciding what funded events we were going to use this month (because of the win we were down to six funded events that could go into the player deck), it was time to read the scenario for the month.

We were getting some military support and now able to build garrisons instead of the research centres if we wanted to. We also got two new objectives to try and achieve along side the default objective of finding cured for the three curable diseases. Our goal was to complete two out of the three objectives.

There was some confusion though with the mission card, and building garrisons. We had no counters to show a garrison had been built. The mission card told us to open up in order three items when we saw the numbers. Did that mean now, or would we be hitting these numbers later on? We played safe and decided to hold off opening them. This was very confusing, not as clear as the previous card.

We got a new possible team member to add to our rosta. Whose speciality tied in with the garrisons. Plus one of our new objectives was to build a garrison in each of the six zones on the board. The other new one was eradicate one disease.

Once we had chosen our funded events, we drew the initial outbreaks, and then decided which of our three starting research stations we were going to start from. For the last time we also got to place a quarantine marker during set up.

This was an even closer game than February. We eradicated C-Thatcam Major, it was the easiest one to do. I only needed four cards to get the cure, and also now didn't need to be in a research station to find the cure. So naturally that was the first cure we got, and we also managed to eradicate it. One objective down.

Debs and Jonathan were busy keeping COdA-403b under control using quarantine markers. Our unnamed yellow disease got cured. We just had to find a cure for Sithite.

Epidemics happened, as did the outbreaks, COdA-403b came dangerously close to costing us the game. Our planning was based around trying to get Matt and Debbie in the same city to hand a single Sithite city card to Debs, so we could complete the second objective.

This was going to be closer than the previous month, there were five cards left, three by the time it was Debbie's turn. But she had drawn the the fifth Sithite city previously, no need to meet up with Matt. Just a dash to the nearest research centre and discover the cure, all in four actions!

We had won!! But only by the thinnest of margins.

After reading the end of mission legacy card, and seeing the extra rewards to choose from, we choose our winners rewards.

Still the mystery of the garrisons existed. We decided that we had already seen them, and opened up the relevant panels and boxes. There were garrison pieces, a new upgrade of having starting garrisons, a new build garrison action. This should have been done at the start. But that wording was soooo confusing. Jonathan vowed to go read spoilers for March to see what others did. Would this have made the month easier having a garrison in Sithite territory? Would we have got an easier victory being able to build the six required garrisons? Well we will never know.

I think the wording on the mission card could have been better, less ambiguous. Or were we just missing the obvious, and being dumb?

April is going to be HARD…

 

Fitting Up Dr Kinky

Fenland Gamers, play test, Space Hulk

Once more wannabe police officers Jonathan, Les and myself decided to patrol The Streets of Commonville to fit up another ne'er-do-well for crimes they didn't do (this time, but they are wrong 'uns and guilty, and need getting off the streets. The ends justify the means as the motto of the American justice system goes.)

For this play session Jonathan had pimped out the the tiles and tokens from laminated paper to “chunky” cardboard. As you can see from the photo above I used Bad Cop from The Lego Movie to track my character level.

These thicker components gave a nice feel to playing the game.

Once more cams were fitted to our patrolling officers so the whole game was recorded for prosperity and to be used against us by the game designers.

Even though the game still took an hour and a half to play, it didn't seem that long. There is no down time, no analysis paralyse, everyone was involved.

With three players the game board was opened up far more quickly than the two player game.

In an earlier patrol officer Jonathan testified that one tactic he saw being an option was having one player do the majority of the levelling up by getting the hoodlums. After this session I can't see that as a viable fun tactic to persue. I got stuck going after some hoodlums that turned out to be under control, with low time rolls, I wasn't able to do much, and needed dice passed to me to allow me to do things like reveal evidence. I ended up sacrificing my rolls to get dice needed by the others. It's not much fun.

I still think that there still needs to be another way to level up other than the hoodlums. And that the hoodlums need to be in less predictable positions.

It was interesting to hear that Jonathan's partner in design plays the game differently to us. Where we discuss tactics/options, who needs what dice, and we roll our dice together to achieve our aims that turn. While the opposite is true for the other designers testing. They roll and act independently. Curious, this doesn't strike me as playing it co-operatively. Interesting none the less though.

In the end we won by fitting up the suspect who got named Dr Kinky for his penchant for handcuffs.

Did we roll too many gain two minute faces? Possibly this time that was the way the dice landed. But on other occasions we didn't get nearly the same amount.

I look forward to seeing the next rules tweak after the designers have reviewed the video and discussed things over.

Just in week starting 8/2/16

lego minifigs, netrunner, new arrivals

The latest Netrunner data pack Kala Ghoda landed through the letter box this week. Kala Ghoda is the first data pack in the Mumbad Cycle. A second pack of sleeves for Netrunner was also ordered to give me enough sleeves to use of that design.

Munchkin Gloom in its rediculous over sized box was picked up for a bargain price off the Facebook Trading and Selling Group.

Continuing my DVD trip down memory lane the 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men dropped through the letter box. This series is the inspiration behind the movie The Rocketeer. Which captured the whole feel, look really well.

Formula D is really getting under my skin. I love the game. Like Harbour I wanted something to use as a social media boast about winning. Hence the arrival of this little racing driver minifig.

Below are the extra sleeves I bought to sleeve my corporate deck. It was a little annoying and embarrassing to start sleeving the deck Tuesday before play only to discover I didn't have enough sleeves. Which forced me to play unsleeved.

I have to admit the FFG official Netrunner sleeves they produce like the four (I think it's four) official playmats look amazing. I just wish FFG produced a high quality Netrunner storage solution as WoTC do for MTG in the form of the gift boxes.

 

OMG what have I done?

netrunner, pandemic

I've only gone and signed up for the 2016 Regionals taking place on the Friday at the UK Games Expo.

Last year this event was the Nationals, but FFG partnering up with Esdevium a sister company in the Asmodee Borg stable are hosting the Nationals latter in the year now at a separate event.

Talk about jumping in at the deep end.

I've not even played in a store comp yet! But that will be changing soon thanks to the just starting meta in Chatteris, and my FLGS there The Hobbit Hole having the spring store kit on order.

Even with this regular venue to play games, I'm still a noob at the game.

So I'm expecting to just be cannon fodder for the much more experienced players, and proving just how strong I am propping the whole of the rest of the other players up from the bottom.

However this does give me a focus.

I also entered the Pandemic Survival Regional. This is happening on the Saturday. I'm hoping after reading this sentence that one or two of my fellow Fenland Gamers who are also going to the Expo will take the big hint and also sign up.

“Pandemic Survival is an “extreme” version of Pandemic where 6 to 12 teams of 2 will face each other in an epic battle to save the world. Their goal: to be the first team to find all four cures, or to be the last team still alive at the end of the game.” (Taken from the link below)

Sounds exciting doesn't it?

The Pandemic Survival Nationals takes place the next day. I'm assuming this is going to be like a grand play off of the top twelve players from the previous day.

This is definitely an event that all Pandemic fans should experience I think (this is my first chance to take part in one). Take a look at this Z-Man page for a description of what the competition will involve.

There is a Lords of Waterdeep competition as well but I want some time to “chill” and buy games at the Expo.

So at least you know where to find me on the Friday and Saturday at the Expo.