All Good Things and Return of Father Son Gaming…

father son gaming, Game day

Yesterday was my last day visiting Nath.

In reality it’s more like half a day as I leave at midday to avoid traffic (especially the M25 leg), and to get back early enough for Mum who is on dog sitting duties. Apparently the two little horrors play her up rotten during the night!

After getting Nathan to empty and load up his dishwasher we had time for a game before I had to hit the road.

Nathan chose a favourite of ours 7 Wonders Duel.

This was a game that went to the wire, unlike our previous game during my last visit.

There was some take that with me stealing one of Nathan’s unbuilt wonders using a deity, Nathan destroying a couple of my cards (very annoying).

I did manage to build all four of my wonders.

However the game did go all three ages and to the final scoring.

I managed to scrape a win by two whole points.

And that was it. Time to pack away the game. Gather my things, and say our farewells.

I hate saying good bye to Nathan. I love our time together so much. I wish we were closer (geographically) so I could see him more often.

For those interested for the last couple of weeks I’ve been listening to Wil Wheaton’s Still Just A Geek (thanks to my friend Duncan for telling me about it). And on the trip down to see Nath this is what I was listening to.

It’s been a very hard listen on a personal level.

There was much that Wil talked about that resonated with me and my life experiences.

The journey back was used to catch up on a podcast or two.

With the imminent release of the next WotC D&D book, Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen I wanted to listen to some of the reviews/first looks to see if I should cancel my pre-order on Amazon.

It was the reviews (podcasts and youtube) that warned me about Spelljammer not being worth the money, falling short on what a DM might need compared to books like Eberron.

Podcasts I listened to on my journey home

I’m not cancelling my order. But I’m glad I bought the campaign source book because it’s not the product I really wanted.

My ideal product would have been a Dragonlance version of the Eberron book. In reality it looks more like we are getting something in line with Avernus.

However it has stuff that will still be useful in running a homebrew campaign in the Dragonlance universe.

D&D Grp 2 Session 11 Planning #4

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.

This whole American import of Black Friday and the much more recent Cyber Monday and the pre-Christmas money grab that it is I do find kinda obscene and morally questionable.

However overcoming my inner conflict about the whole thing, I did take Monty Cook Games up on their Black Friday discount for getting the pdf version of their Ptolus City By The Spire source book for 5e.

The main reason I did this was to get the stat blocks for the npc cards. However this is a massive book, with a lot of digital extras too. I may just might have to pick up the physical copy at some point.

I already knew the art in the book was gorgeous from the npc cards I bought.

The cool thing is that the npc cards also tell you page numbers of where the stat blocks are. Which is very handy and time saving not having to search through the 679 odd pages that make up the book.

The stat blocks are in the margins of the pages, which works! They usually refer you elsewhere to a common stat block which might be in an official WotC source books, or on a given specific page of the book.

Sadly for me Rullus Hobb isn’t an npc but a player handout with no stats! But now with the sourcebook I can use the appropriate stat block from the book itself or from WotC stuff.

Granted I’m going to have to do some work to gather the relevant info into one place like on a blank card template from Arcane Library for easy reference during a session.

Apart from the npcs I’ll be using this city source book for ideas to use in my campaign. I’m pretty sure I’ll get more than a couple of ideas/hooks from here.

Well before I left to visit Nathan the postie arrived and had the Stormwreck Isle 2D miniatures with them plus the Amazon guy had the Deck of Many Things.

So at least I don’t have to worry about these arriving, and they are ready to be thrown into the DM bag and any session.

Return of the Return of Father Son Gaming

father son gaming, Game day, game night

No gaming took place last night. After a pretty cool roast dinner we watched the Wales vs England match, and then John Wick 2 (we had watched John Wick the previous night, and guess what we are watching tonight?)

Why a roast dinner last night?

Nathan gets all the credit for that. I guess he fancied it while I was down visiting, because Sunday he said he had bought the stuff to make one, like a whole chicken, etc. Only problem he had was he’d never cooked a chicken before. So cooking duties fell onto me.

I’m still getting used to his oven, but the Yorkshire puddings came out ok.

I got to go into Basingstoke Centre today, and visit a gaming shop called The Gaming Den. Lots of stock, which is nice to see. I could easily have spent lots of money there but I was super strong.

Ok it helped that a visit to a stationary shop to pick up some index cards turned out to be a tad more expensive than planned.

Once home I quickly wrote out a couple of recipes that he’d asked for on the index cards and put them on Nath’s whiteboard for him.

The afternoon saw me making chicken noodle soup and visiting the Stonemaier web store to order the three new realms that were released today.

But whilst on the virtual store I was pleasantly surprised to see the Tapestry play mat had also been released.

I was aware Jamey had been looking at doing a play mat for Tapestry. But it had escaped me that they were actually in production. So I was definitely not expecting them in the store today.

After having the chicken noodle soup with slices of a fresh baguette to help mop it up, Nathan and I watched a brief Roll for Crit how to play for Marvel Champions.

It refreshed my memory (I don’t play this nearly enough) and gave Nathan an overview of the game.

It was enough so that we could play the following match up.

Nathan played Wolverine, whilst I played Phoenix.

Things seemed to be going well. The threat level of Thanos’s scheme was under control (by Phoenix) whilst he was getting thumped by Wolverine.

Then it went all Pete Tong as they used to say.

Thanos thumped Phoenix for a massive seven damage, followed by his minion Black Dwarf finishing the job off.

This left Wolverine to stand toe to toe with Thanos trading blows.

It was a heroic effort but in the end to no avail as Thanos managed to complete his scheme.

We really enjoyed going up against Thanos. With a better card draw we might have won. I think that is the difference between this game and the one with Diego with Ultron.

In that game our hero selection was totally unsuitable for the villain and his schemes. We got thrashed.

Here the match up seemed more appropriate. Phoenix keeping the threat under control whilst Wolverine did what Wolverine does. It felt like we had a chance.

Nathan really enjoyed our game of this. So it will find a place in the bag on future visits.

Our final game of the evening was a game of Rolling Realms.

Another winner with Nathan, despite me winning. But the scores were pretty close.

Our evening is finishing with the third film in the John Wick series.

Return of Father Son Gaming

father son gaming, Game day, game night

There seems a nice symmetry to this months gaming.

November started with me visiting Nathan and playing games with him, and it ends that way too.

It means so much that I am able to spend time with Nathan. That wasn’t always the case over the last few years. Caring for Nan meant it wasn’t possible to get away for a couple of days to visit him. It was a heavy price to pay. But we did willingly out of love for Nan.

After having toad in the hole with onion gravy for tea Nathan and I played the latest expansion for Wingspan, and also stand alone two player game, Wingspan Asia.

But before we played I had to open up the box it came in (yep I hadn’t even done this since it arrived a couple weeks back), take off the cellophane, punch cardboard, and quickly read up the rule changes for duet mode.

I’m not sure why but playing Wingspan with unsleeved or “naked” cards felt so so wrong. It just didn’t feel right.

Wingspan Asia can be used as a straight up expansion for Wingspan by just shuffling the cards that come into the box with the core games plus any other expansions. Which is how it’ll probably end up for me.

This expansion makes it so Wingspan can also be played by six or seven players in what is called flock mode. Or as I will refer to it as “not for me mode”.

Then we have the final way this expansion can be used, and that is duet mode.

Duet mode is a two player variant of standard Wingspan that adds a duet board, and new end of round objectives based on that board.

You get to place a piece on the duet board when you play a bird or a card ability allows you put a bird on the board. Where the piece goes on the board depends on the habitat the bird was played on, plus either the food type used to pay for it, it’s nest type, wing span, or direction looking.

Some of the spots on the duet board also give you a bonus of some kind when a piece is placed on it, like drawing a bird card, or getting an egg.

If you can’t or don’t want to place a piece on the duet board you can instead place it on the area in the bottom left of the board. Then on a future turn remove the piece from there to reset either the food tray or the bird market place. I like this a lot. Ok I didn’t do it. But just having that there as an option is pretty cool. It also makes that placement of the duet piece a harder decision.

I like what the duet board brings to the table in a two player game. It adds a new tactical element and decisions that need to be made that encourages the playing of birds.

I also like that the first player marker goes to the player that didn’t win the end of round scoring. It almost feels like an attempt at a catch up mechanism!

This may just be how I play Wingspan from now on when visiting Nathan. Which is the only time I play Wingspan two player.

The bgstat history books will record that I beat Nathan with a tucking engine!

Today, as the events already told were yesterday, has seen a relaxed start to the day.

Starting with my regular everyday breakfast of a mug of coffee and two Nevill’s Pains Au Chocolat. What can I say I’m a creature of habit. Except when Tesco don’t have them. Then I have to improvise.

After a relaxing soak in the bath reading a book on data science, it was time to take a trip.

A trip to the local shops sees a charity shop find that no-one boasts about on the Facebook boardgaming groups I belong to. I got a large saucepan and a couple of trays ideal to make Yorkshire puddings in. I need, well Nathan needs that big pot. Tomorrow I’m turning the left over chicken from our roast today into chicken soup for him. He didn’t have a pot large enough for that.

Lunch for us was an impromptu fry up to use up the remaining sausages Nathan had in the fridge, and some mushrooms just on the right side of edible.

I did start to look at the Star Wars card game Sabacc that Nathan bought whilst he was State side the other month. We’ll play that over the next day or two for sure.

Our first game of the day was Tinners Trail.

I’ve only played this once before as a three player game with Jeff and Jonathan.

So playing it as a two player game was interesting.

It wasn’t an unenjoyable experience. I just thought the bidding was a little flat with two players.

History will show that Nathan won by a massive two points.

Right I have a roast dinner to cook before some more games this evening.

Hope’s Last Day – An Alien RPG Taster Session Prep #2

Alien, Alien RPG, one shot, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming Alien RPG cinematic adventure Hope’s Last Day. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.

We have a date for when we are going to get round the table to play the cinematic introductory adventure Hope’s Last Day.

Which should be a day or two before the D&D campaign happens. Yeah some lessons I just never learn.

As part of my prep I’m rewatching the movies again. Plus watching the odd actual plays on YouTube to get an idea how to run a year zero (the engine the Alien RPG is based on) adventure. They are definitely presented differently to the D&D 5e adventures I am used to.

If memory does not let me down I have the maps for this already without a need to print them out for the players. I just need GM annotated copies for myself.

So still lots to do, and I’ll keep you updated as I go along.

D&D Grp 2 Session 11 Planning #3

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.

Well poor communication and the lack of anyone taking the initiative on setting a time means the session didn’t go ahead.

I’ve put up new dates and times for two weeks time. So waiting to hear if they work for everyone else now, and some sort of consensus.

In the meantime I’ve caved and soon a deck of many things will be in my grubby hands waiting for the party to discover.

In the now no longer running other campaign I used a deck of illusions. Which seemed at the time to go down well.

On a practical level the deck of illusions used a bog standard deck of cards. Nothing special about the cards or deck at all. You just have to remove the cards 3-7 of each suit, leave the jokers in to get the 34 cards that make up the deck of illusions. I need to recreate this deck for this campaign.

I know that if/when the party come across the deck of many things that a certain female gnome will not only pick up the deck, but draw a card from it.

The great Matt Colville did a video about the deck of many things years ago now as part of the running the game series of YouTube videos.

Some great advice in there for using the deck of many things. Advice I may just follow.

One of the cards in the deck of many things, the skull summons an avatar of death. I’d love this as a 2D mini (I love these from Wizkids) but to have enough to take on the party I’d need to buy multiple copies. They are also available as 28mm prepainted minis. But that wouldn’t save me much money (even if they were in stock).

Sadly for the group with the delay I have time to weave either or both of these decks into the campaign and the next session.

I like the idea of Rullus Hobb leaving one of these behind after their initial encounter with him.

Which reminds me I really do need to get a stat block for him.

I’m still waiting for the Stormwreck Isle 2D miniatures pack to arrive. It should be here real soon. Well in the next week. Hopefully.

Laters…

X-Men vs The Snap!

expansions, first look, LCG, Marvel Champions

We all know that eventually I will have all the expansions for Marvel Champions.

The plan is to pick up a couple of heroes a month and a campaign/scenario.

That plan started this month with the arrival of Nebula, Phoenix, and Wolverine, along with The Mad Titans Shadow campaign.

Obviously this is a first look/impressions of these new arrivals so they haven’t been to the table yet.

I think you should also bare in mind that I only play Marvel Champions multiplayer, and currently only use the prebuilt decks. So no solo play, and currently no deckbuilding.

It should also be noted that I don’t have everything. Hence the opening couple of sentences to this post.

Also that I’ve picked these heroes and the campaign not based on any rankings, that these are the best to get, etc. But because these are heroes that I think are cool, and enjoy in the comics. The campaign was chosen because I thought it would be cool to go toe to toe with the main villain.

That should be enough ammunition to dismiss anything I write in the rest of the post. So let’s get on with it…

Wolverine

If this Wolverine deck wasn’t an aggression deck then I think myself and others would be complaining it’s not thematic and true to the character.

Wolverine is all about dealing damage and lots of it in one go by the looks of it. But in doing so Wolverine also takes a bit of damage. Luckily he is able to heal not only in his alter ego form but also in his hero form. This is very on the nose theme wise.

Phoenix

Phoenix as it comes out of the box is a justice deck. Justice decks are usually about dealing with the villians scheme by removing the threat tokens.

I’m not sure why they took Phoenix in the justice direction. The fifteen Phoenix cards don’t scream justice, unlike the Wolverine cards that scream clobberin’ time (I know its a Thing thing!)

If I was into the deckbuilding side of the game (which I’ll get into further down the line in my journey with Marvel Champions) then I’d definitely be trying Phoenix as an aggression deck.

Nebula

Nebula like Phoenix is a justice deck.

The Nebula deck does feel more justice than the Phoenix deck.

I like the look of the technique upgrade cards, and how they boost Nebula. Very thematic. It does look like cycling through the deck and discard pile to get to and play these cards is key.

The Mad Titans Shadow

This campaign expansion pitches you against Ebony Maw, Proxima Midnight (with Corvus Glaive), Thanos, Hela, and Loki.

The villain and scheme really decide which hero or type of deck you should be playing.

For instance the Ultron game I played with Diego was super tuff for us as we had no way to combat the minion spamming that happened. We needed a hero that could take out the minions. Which neither of us were playing.

I’m avoiding reading anything about the schemes so that when I play them I get the twists and turns.

But as villians selected for this expansion we have the ones you’d expect plus two you wouldn’t.

I can’t wait to see how Loki and Hela are worked into the campaign story. Obviously Thanos and his minions are telling the Infinity Gauntlet story to some degree.

We also get two new heroes to add to the roster to choose from.

Spectrum

Spectrum comes as a leadership deck. I’m not sure why looking at her fifteen cards. I don’t see anything here that supports helping other heroes in the team.

Spectrum is all about swapping between the three energy forms that boost one of the three hero stats when face up.

That alone interests me enough to try the character out, because Spectrum isn’t a hero I’d naturally choose to play.

I see Spectrum as one of those characters that could be any of the four aspects.

Adam Warlock

Adam Warlock although not a hero I’d go for when choosing a hero to play. I have to admit the fact he has all four aspects in his deck and uses this to power his ability does look like an interesting mechanic I’d like to try at least once.

So two very interesting heroes mechanics wise.

I can’t wait to play the following team-up with Nathan when I visit him next week.

Hopefully going up against Thanos will not be another Ultron experience!

D&D Grp 2 Session 11 Planning #2

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.

I’m not sure what’s happening tomorrow. There has been no chatter on our groups messenger chat.

As if reading my mind or the posts on here, Mike Shea has written an update for the City of Arches about the Sunken Rethrea area of the “under city”.

It’s a separate document at the moment that Mike (as we are on first name terms despite having never met or communicated with each other) has shared with his patreons (that’d be me and many others) to get feedback before adding it to the main document.

Sunken Rethrea is an area that the party will have to navigate through to get to the the vaults to find the key needed for the archway to Choul, and stopping Ibraxus.

With the addition of the following I am a little confused.

“Stairs of Darkspire. The mages of the Tower of Kartan have a narrow spiral staircase leading to the ruined tower of Darkspire. The mages warded the staircase and vaults with powerful magics to prevent the horrors of Rethrea from working their way back up into the lower tower. The mages of Kartan often send adventurers on quests through this staircase with keys able to bypass the wards. These keys only work for a short amount of time lest they fall into the hands of enemies below.”

Does this replace the following from the Kartan, Tower of the Arcane description?

“An ironbound glyphed door on the first floor stands in front of a stairwell leading deep into the ground below where numerous laboratories and vaults of the dark wizards remain largely untouched.”

Or is it in addition?

It’s definitely an interesting part of the city to explore, and as hinted previously an opportunity to introduce horror elements to the campaign.

If we do persue the Rullus Hobb plot thread Temple of the Three Sisters then I need to give Rullus some suitable minions. I see Rullus as some sort of Joker like character capable of the most heinous of acts.

Some of those minions might interrupt that long rest of the party!

D&D Grp 2 Session 11 Planning #1

D&D, D&D Grp2, RPG, session planning

SPOILER ALERT TO MY ADVENTURERS! The following post contains spoilers for the up and coming campaign/session. You may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one. REMEMBER you have been warned.

It’s suddenly dawned on me this coming Sunday is our planned next session.

I have no idea what we will be doing.

I’m assuming the party will be following the Rullus Hobb plot thread. So I will need to keep a map handy for a temple.

The Dragon’s Rest map from the new Starter Set Dragons of Stormwreck Isle looks just perfect for the Temple of the Three Sisters.

Although the party are taking a long rest. I’m tempted to interrupt it! Allow them the benefits of a short rest, give them exhaustion (using the new One D&D rules for it), and drag them kicking and screaming into the world.

Not sure what or why they get disturbed. I need to think about this.

I had a revelation whilst writing the post about the arrival of two classic adventures that for the ruined cities buried beneath the streets of the City of Arches I can reuse town maps from other adventures.

Why I didn’t think of this earlier I have no frickin idea?

I can repurpose the Ruins of Thundertree from the Starter Set adventure Lost Mines of Phandelver for Sunken Rethrea, and Phandelver or one of the classic town maps for the Lower Reaches.

Bit tired, need to do some brainstorming. Catch you in the next post.