One Big Cluster

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This should of been my view yesterday (archive photo)

This is what my view ended up being for several hours.

Yep I was all loaded up for a visit to Nath. Castle Panic, Imperial Assault (plus the new expansions), Star Realms, King of Tokyo in the car ready. Even my Amazon order that I placed first thing had been set up to deliver to Naths for Saturday (Power Up expansion for King of Tokyo, Wizards Tower for Castle Panic, and Lords of Waterdeep). All I had to do was get to Naths before five pm, we would then spend a pleasant evening at an Italian restaurant with friends, and spend the rest of the weekend gaming.

Before I left Wisbech had the tires checked. Needed a new one, which they didn't have in stock so ordered and paid for four new tires, and booked the car in for eight am Tuesday morning for them to be put on.

I was making good time, I had left Wisbech centre of the universe at eleven am. I got to the bypass round St Albans at one. That's when things slowed to a crawl. Due to road works on the bypass it took nearly an hour to get round on to the M25. Then as usual the M25 was its normal car park, finally made it to the M40, where surprise surprise there was another jam. Two hours to do a 30 minute at most stretch of the route.

Then at three pm just out side Maidenhead on the A404(M) the front driver tire blew. It wasn't the one that needed replacing! I couldn't get the spare tire out from underneath the car. So had to call out the recovery people.

The recovery bloke arrived an hour later, got the spare tire out, then discovered that the spare tire was the wrong size! This was the spare tire that the garage I bought the car from nearly two years ago had put on the car because it was missing a spare tire when I bought it. Should have guessed they would muck this up.

Good grief so the car was going to have to be recovered. Which meant having to go all the way back to Wisbech. Four new tires were waiting for me there. No point getting recovered to Naths.

Then the wait set in, waiting for a recovery truck to take me back to arrive. I feel sorry for the recovery bloke because he can't leave me due to some warped duty of care thing until the recovery truck turns up.

So as I sat in the car waiting, typing up this post, running the battery down on my phone with Instagram updates, checking email, playing the odd game of Lords of Waterdeep and Star Realms on my iPad. The recovery bloke was sat in his van equally twiddling his thumbs to pass the time.

At just gone six the recovery companies call desk phoned with a great scam, they could arrange for a company to come out to me to do the tire, but it would incur an out of hours charge! I politey declined this kind offer to lighten my wallet.

Finally the recovery truck arrived at 8:24pm!! Yeah do the maths folks, nearly five and a half hours.

The guy tasked with carting my sorry butt back to the deepest fenlands had actually heard of, and been to Wisbech. He'd had an aunt who once lived there. The aunt had retired to Wisbech or as I used to call it as a kid “Gods waiting room” (there were a lot of old people it seemed when I was growing up) to spend her twilight years.

Once loaded up my only request of the driver was to be able to stop at the nearest place I would be able to answer a call of nature. Yes I was nearly at bursting point. First bit of luck for the day for me was this stopping point was five minutes drive from my breakdown spot.

With the world feeling a better place we started the journey back to Wisbech. The journey was uneventful, a bit bumpy and boy was the seat uncomfortable.

I navigated the recovery guy into Wisbech for some reason his satnav was going to take him in a long way to mine. The final time of coming to a stop was eleven thirty four. Did I say I was knackered?

The car unloaded, paper work done, farewells said, I was back in the house and collecting the dogs from Nan and Mum next door. Then straight to bed. It had been a long disappointing day.

I've got the car to sort out today, the adventure continues.

 

I’m back

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So I'm back after a day of drunken debauchary at my friend Amanda's wedding, followed by a day of chilling.

I'd like to say that I needed the day of chilling because my drunken antics were of legend that would put Motley Crüe and Guns 'n Roses to shame. But the reality was I went I have a snooze at around 7pm, and woke up at 11:45! Which meant I missed tea and the wedding cake. So not exactly rock and roll.

The truth is more that I needed the day of chilling because all of a sudden I'm old.

In closing this brief segment I'd like to wish Amanda and Paul a long and harmonious marriage. It really was a magical day. Thank you for inviting me to share this special day with you and your loved ones.

I was going to stay an extra night, but I made the mistake of calling home. Mum had broken down at Aldi, so I needed to get home.

However Greenflag had got to Mum and recovered her home by the time I hit Wisbech. However back at home the following was waiting for me.

Yep the wave two expansions for Imperial Assault arrived. Just in time to take with me to Naths. Which also means with the Star Realms Cosmic Gambit expansion I have a small backlog of “indepth” looks to do.

Oh and before I forget for my fellow Star Wars fans you may want to nip over to The Humble Bundle website and get the new Audiobook bundle they are doing. They have a cool collection of Star Wars audio books to get which includes the awesome radio plays of the original trilogy movies. Click HERE to go get them.

The Game of Thrones boardgame hasn't arrived yet, but is due any day (fingers crossed).

Plus this week the kickstarter project for A Chaotic Life! – A Hectic and Strategic Game of Poor Choices by Grubton Games has started shipping out to backers (that's me ^_^). So hopefully in a couple of weeks it should be with me (shipping from the U.S.)

 

How Beautiful Is Risk:GoT edition?

game of thrones, star realms

You have to go look at the video of the new Risk A Game of a Thrones edition that the folks over at Boardgame Geek recorded at GenCon nearly a month ago now (it's only gone up today).

The game looks stunning. The publisher appears to have done a really good job in the whole look and presentation. I definitely want to to get this even more now. It will be interesting to compare it with the GoT boardgame.

You can view the video on YouTube https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LMtxZbTKXtQ

Star Realms Stuff

Hot in from the U.S. of A is the Star Realms stuff I bought off some-one that attended GenCon and had spares.

First up the Blob Fight promo for GenCon signed by Robert Dougherty (Lead Game Development on Star Realms). This is super cool and AWESOME. And yes I am that easily pleased and impressed.

There was also a Mercenary Garrison card. Which seeing as I already have will be finding its way to Naths Star Realms cards for his birthday.

Then finally there was the GenCon Preview edition of the upcoming Cosmic Gambits expansion.

If I get a chance over the next couple of days I'll do a post looking at the cards in this new expansion. However I'm at a friends wedding tomorrow and not sure what the internet situation is like at the venue (which I'm staying at until Friday).

 

Last Nights Runs

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So last night Windy and Tag You Are It got to go up against decks from Jamie again.

First up was Windy taking on Jamie's Jinteki deck. My first five cards drew “I've Had Worse” and Trope, but no Aesops or Hive Mind or Virus Breeding Ground, not even a whiff of Djinn. I was really undecided about whether I should mulligan to try and get the Aesops. Although Trope was a card I wanted early also so I could start building up those power tokens to allow me to shuffle back in more cards from the heap back into the stack.

I thought bugger it I'll play this hand and use the “I've Had Worse” to draw three cards in hope of drawing at least an Aesops. But nope that wasn't to be. And my card draw didn't get any better after that either. I did score an agenda from Archives, but I had shuffled my deck too well and everything I really needed just wasn't coming up.

This was a really easy win for Jamie.

Game two was the same match up again. This time I got Aesops early, my economy was working better, the milling was going. I score a one point agenda, Jamie score some agendas. I finally run on Archives with the milled R&D cards sitting there so tempting, waiting for my grubby runner hands to reveal their secrets. I use up all my credits to get through the ice to steal Archives secrets.

OMG jackpot three agendas! I score one, another single agenda point. The other two are three pointers. Bugger both require a Psi Game. No cash. Jamie asks me to how much credits I have. I reply none. Feck Feck Feck. If only I had two credits left. No way I was going to win these two Psi Games.

But I knew what had to be done. It was now a race between me and Jamie. Jamie advanced, advanced a server. I built up credits to enable me to run Archives again the next go, and have some left for the Psi Games.

Advance, rez… Game over. So close!

Third game Tag Your Are It against Jamie's Kate deck. I know where I lost this game. It was the moment I decided to hide an agenda in an unprotected Archives, thinking Jamie wouldn't run it, because who would be so stupid as to hide an agenda in an unprotected server? Obviously the answer is me.

Why did I hide it in Archives? Well I didn't want it sitting in HQ, Jamie had been making runs on there, and I didn't have a protected server for it to be installed on.

So guess which server Jamie ran on and get a cheap, no free agenda? Yep Archives.

This NBN deck has potential I think. As I said in yesterday's post I need to revisit the ice. Maybe look at the economy side also.

 

NBN Tag You Are It Deck

netrunner

Following on from yesterday's post about my “tweaked” Noise deck that I have given the name Windy, here is my first attempt at an evil corp deck.

Please remember when thinking “why hasn't he used/included such and such a card?” I have all the data packs up to the latest one from The SanSan Cycle Old Hollywood. The only Deluxe expansion I have is Order and Chaos. So if the card is from one of the Deluxe expansions I don't have then you know why. If the card is one I have then please let me know in the comments below how I can improve my evil corp deck, along with which card you think it should be replacing.

The identity I am using is the NBN Making News identity.

Making news gives me a minimum deck size of forty five cards and an influence of fifteen to use on out of faction cards. It also gives me two re-occurring credits to use on traces. Which basically means whenever I initiate a trace on a runner it automatically is two stronger before I add anything additional to it.

As I have previously said and as the name I have given this deck suggests, this deck is all about tagging the runner. But it's no good tagging the runner if I am not going to do anything with those tags. This is why I've included operations like Closed Accounts (screws with their economy) or Shoot The Moon (I get to Rez ice for free). Snare! just gives me another way to tag the runner, and trash cards in their grip.

I believe Jackson Howard is a “standard” in corp decks, and gives me some extra card draw, and a way to move some cards from archives (discard pile) back into R&D (deck). Marked Accounts and PAD Campaign (another “standard”) are all about my economy and giving me funds to install and advance stuff.

Primary Transmission Dish is another economy card but this time acting as another mega boost for the traces. Get this out with my identities ability that is plus five to all my traces! Adonis Campaign or Sexy Bot as it is referred to in the TeamWorkCast game commentries pure money in the bank! Breaker Bay Grid is there to help reduce the cost of rezzing ice and assets etc.

We are now coming onto the section of my deck I'm the least confident about. And very very likely needs the most work. It's the ice I'm going to be using to protect my servers.

I think if I was going to spend the remaining influence points that I have it would most likely be to add ice from other factions I think.

Finally we are onto the twenty agenda points I have to have for having a forty eight card deck. Even if I was at the minimum card count of forty five I would still be required to have twenty agenda points.

I have reached the twenty point total with eleven agenda cards. Which means 22.9% of my deck is agendas. Is this too high a ratio?

If the runner leaves the tags on and I score Private Security Force, it could be game over for them. Or if they are tagged when I score Market Research it gets an extra agenda point! So instead of scoring as two it becomes three. That could be a game winning condition.

So forty eight cards, twenty agenda points, and four of my available influence points spent.

Now to play these decks in anger against another player. Which is happening this evening ^_^

 

 

Windy My Current Noise Deck

netrunner

In this post I thought I would cover the cards in the latest interation of my Noise deck. For the record I have all the data packs up to the latest one from The SanSan Cycle Old Hollywood (see yesterday's post). The only Deluxe expansion I have is Order and Chaos. I still need to get Creation and Control plus Honor and Profit. In fact I need to make that a priority I think.

So my Noise deck is forty six cards. Uses nine of the possible fifteen influence points. But I know, what have I used to make this deck?

So I have the following in my deck:

So the plan is to mill a lot by installing viruses, cashing them in with Aesop to get some economy. Hopefully get the Hades Shard installed early to allow me to access the corps archives to steal some juicy agendas. It's always a game of chicken with this, just how long do you let that archives pile up before pulling the trigger? Djinn will allow me (as long as I remember it does this) fetch viruses from the stack, while Deja Vu and Trope allow me to get cards out of the heap back into my grip or the stack to go through the cycle once more of install and pawn.

I also have some nice cards there that allow me to beef up the virus cards with virus tokens very quickly. Plus one or two that allow me to install more than my memory allocation will allow. Plus I have card to give me card draw and counter meat and net damage.

Because milling is the main tactic of the deck, I'm calling this deck Windy after Windy Miller from Trumpton ^__^

Top of My Livng Room Cupboards

Well games need storing somewhere, and I'm running out of space!

 

Old Hollywood

netrunner

Old Hollywood the latest data pack from the SanSan cycle has hit the shelves of the stores. I'll give a warning now for those that don't want to know the contents because part of getting a new data pack is the surprise of discovering new cards as they go through the pack, SPOILER ALERT STOP READING NOW!

In a new departure for me I thought I'd do a more indepth look at the contents that make up the data pack. I will give this disclaimer. I'm no expert, I don't know the cards well enough to be an expert.

One of the things I love about Android:Netrunner is the Cyberpunk theme. Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) does such a good job on this. Each data pack comes with a sheet that helps add flavour to the overall theme of that data pack. I love these flavour sheets.

The one that comes with Old Hollywood does not disappoint. Done in the style of “tabloid” celebrity news coverage it sets the tone perfectly.

So let's look at the cards in Old Hollywood for my beloved Runners.

Runners

First up the runner faction that is me, Anarch. Anarch gets two new cards in this data pack, a theme we will see for all the runner factions except the factionless cards.

I can see both of these cards finding a home in my Noise deck. Trope would be a useful card for getting cards from my heap (discard pile for none players) back into the stack (deck). Ideally the card would need to be drawn early so that the power counters can build up.
Spoilers would be useful on the mill side of things, in helping speed that up. But once again needs to be out early to be of any real use.
Now onto Criminal, like Anarch they get two new cards. Both thematically fitting really well with the criminal theme. I don't play Criminal so can't say if they would be good enough for making it into a criminal deck, but for me I can't see myself spending scarce influence points on them to use with Noise.
The last runner faction and once again one I've not played so I'm giving the same get out clause as I did with Criminal. I will have to do some research because although thematic I'm a bit confused about how useful these two cards are. What use is a zero value agenda? Or why would you not want to score an agenda straight away? Are these cards a way of protecting agendas from the corps?
The final runner card is factionless and is a resource. It's an interesting card, take a tag prevent all meat damage. Is this meant to replace Plascrete Carapace when we hit the first card rotation?

Now let's look at those evil corps…

Corp

First to get some Old Hollywood lovin is HB.

Next up is Jinteki and I love the classic line references as the card titles. I can see It's A Trap! getting a bit of play in decks. Don't think I'd like to face a deck with this and Snare! in it. Mind you I think Offer might prove popular too for a cheap score of an agenda point.

We then come to NBN the corp faction I have decided to go with. I like the look of the new corp identity. It appeals to me limiting a runner to only being able to steal a single agenda per turn. That's a good card to help protect the central servers.

I like the two new agendas, they are bitter sweet when stolen. You lose the agenda, but get something back in return.

The other cards I like to. Casting call fits in nicely with the “tag you are it” deck I'm trying to build. Which is basically all about tagging the runner and screwing with them.

The final corp faction is Weyland. Two good cards I think for Weyland, particularly like Back Channels.

Then wrapping up we have a single none faction agenda. Don't know if I'd ever use this agenda. But I love it. The Wizard of Oz reference I think is what makes it for me.

I really enjoy this data pack, the theme is amazing, especially for a TV/film buff/fan like me. Oh wait that is probably why I also like NBN. But there are definitely some cards I want to work into decks.

 

Another off the wish list

game of thrones, imperial assault

I tell you this that Facebook group for selling and trading games is like crack.

Sometimes there are some good deals on there that are fair to both the seller and the buyer. Sometimes the seller is completely unrealistic in their expectations in the asking price. They actually think that a used game (even if it is only played once) should get them a price that is only a quid or two less than getting the game new!

So what has this got to do with me? Well I've managed to find one of those fair deals on there today that has landed me a copy of the Game of Thrones boardgame (hence the logo at the start of the post).

It won't be here until next week, then I have the problem of getting it to the table.

The game needs a minimum of three to play, and those three people need to have a large spare chunk of free time. It's my understanding that the game takes a bit of time to play like two to three hours.

So any one in the Wisbech area that would like to play the game with me drop me a line in the comments below.

The wave two expansions for Imperial Assault have started to hit the stores yesterday. I was hoping my order would have made it to me today. But after contacting the store, it appears that it was like a teaser batch that the stores have been sent. With the main shipment hitting next week!

So if I'm lucky I think I will have the expansions middle of next week. Exactly when I'm away for a friends wedding. But they will be (touch wood) in time for my next visit to see Nath over the bank holiday weekend.

 

Sleeve that survivor

netrunner, new arrivals, zombicide

The theme of Android:Netrunner is incredibly awesome, the game is amazing, and boy oh boy is the art on the cards out of this world.

Now to sleeve all of the cards in Netrunner would be a tad on the expensive side. Especially if I was to use the official sleeves. A pack of sleeves is usually made up of fifty sleeves and costs between a fiver and eight quid. With a card count that must easily be over two thousand by now if you have everything, you can quickly do the maths, and have a minor heart attack from the shock.

There is a cheaper solution. Just sleeve the cards that make up your current decks for corporate and runner. For my Noise deck I have been using the beautiful looking Snare sleeves from FFG (below right).

Doesn't the art work for Snare look amazing? I love the whole venus flytrap look of it. It captures the theme of the card perfectly. This card is the Android:Netrunner version of a venus flytrap, it sits there waiting for the runner to “fly” into its cunning trap looking for those oh oh so sweet agendas. But just as the runner realises something is wrong it snaps shut.

However this morning I had two more packs of official FFG sleeves arrive. The amazing looking pop up (above middle) and the equally amazing looking Posted Bounty.
What really impresses me is that there are some really abstract ideas within the game, and some how the artists manage to capture that theme/idea in such a beautiful way. Pop up window and Snare manage to do this so so well.
The pop up window sleeves I'll be using with my NBN corp deck that I am building. If I build a third deck I'll use the Posted Bounty for that.
The exciting thing is I think from what I have seen of Ashes Rise of the Pheonix Born that the art in that game may surpass the art of Netrunner!!!!

The dudes a survivor

Finally the Gary character for Zombicide also arrived today.

As you can see the Gary Zombicide character bares a remarkable resemblance to a certain Jeff Lebowski character played by Jeff Bridges from the cult/hip/classic (think that covers all the bases) movie The Big Lebowski.

I got this character for one friend (the same one I did the hipster minifig for) only to play with. He's a big fan of the movie (although I debate that because he hasn't seen the porn parody version) and when we next play Zombicide (we are long over due for a game or two) I'm sure this will be the only character he will want to play with.

I have to say that I think they have captured the character really really well in the sculpt.

Now I just need to track down the Ross survivor which is the John Goodman character from the movie.