My week

new arrivals

It’s been a very very hectic week at work.

To say I’m knackered each evening is an understatement. My body is sore and stiff. And not in a good way! The harsh reality is I’m old. Well my body is. Somehow my mind still thinks it’s a teenager.

Not much gaming has been going on this month. If I was still sharing the stats each month they would be abysmal.

However a couple of Kickstarters have arrived, as have a couple of promos, a new rpg, and a rethemed game.

The Vaesen rpg bundle arrived or part of it did. It was missing the GM screen and map. So far I have not been overly impressed with the Free League customer support.

However another Free League rpg just arrived! Last year I did back The Lord of the Rings rpg The One Ring Second Edition on Kickstarter.

The level I backed it at got me the core rulebook, starters kit, and GM screen, plus a set of dice. However there appears to be an issue with the dice.

“Now, the dice. Sadly, we have realized that the Feat Dice (the twelve-sided ones) are misprinted, having the number 11 where there should just be a 1. The dice are of course still perfectly usable – just count the 11 as 1 (perhaps while exclaiming that you rolled eleventy-one!)” from a recent Free League The One Ring Second Edition Kickstarter backers update.

Free League have a solution. “We will reprint the faulty D12 Feat Dice and send them to all backers who want them, at no extra cost. We will offer you a choice of replacement Feat Dice or a 100 SEK personal discount voucher in our webshop.” from a more recent Free League The One Ring Second Edition Kickstarter backers update.

However the solution will take a while.

The second Kickstarter to arrive was Gloomier: A Night at Hemlock Hall. This is a “full stand-alone game that includes 6 new Stories and 14 new Guests that can be used with any edition of Gloom.”

The pledge got me Gloomier: A Night at Hemlock Hall standalone card game, Gloom Grief Case deluxe storage box, and The Gloom Chronicles campaign-style mini-expansion.

The latest (second) promo pack for Rolling Realms dropped through the letter box. As did the three promos bgg are selling for Fields of Green.

Finally the Marvel themed version of Splendor arrived. Is there room for vanilla Splendor and Marvel Splendor in my collection? I don’t know. The answer is probably no, and why Gav and me are going to come to an “arrangement” at the next Friday evening gaming session.

Now I just need to get some gaming in!

Bamboozled

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night a new potential host for the Fenland Gamers gaming sessions was tried.

A handful of us gathered at the Wisbech St Mary Sports and Community Centre to try their menu (yes they do food), sup a beverage or two, and naturally test the gaming facilities by playing a game or two.

After consuming our food orders (I tried their steak, whilst others had burgers) we split into two groups to play games.

Our group, Ben, Rachel, Colin and myself played Ben’s copy of Takenoko. Whilst the other group were playing a bluffing card game of some sort (I’m sure Jonathan will leave a comment sharing which games they played).

Records show that I last played Takenoko back in June of 2018. They also show that out of the four times I’ve played the game I have not won a single game.

The current printing of Takenoko is slightly different to the one I had owned (now in the possession of Jonathan after some dodgy back alley wheeling and dealing). Ben had also got a “deluxe” upgrade pack from our FLGS when he purchased it. I believe the upgrade pack had alternate models for the panda and gardener, plus clear blue plastic for the irrigation instead of wood.

The bit I didn’t remember and think is a new addition to the game are the improvement rings. But this could just be my poor memory here.

Apparently adding the wrong improvement ring to a bamboo shoot, or eating a shoot to remove it from a space so nothing grows there again to stop others scoring is a dick thing to do! Ok it might be. But that’s all part of the friendly banter at the table.

Here is the evidence that I suffered my fourth defeat in Takenoko, and that Ben managed to grab victory.

After wards we all gathered round a table to discuss our thoughts about using the place as our regular Friday meet up. I think everyone was happy with the place.

It’s nice that there is the option to get food there as well as beverages. Although I thought the steak I had was over priced for what it was. But that was me testing the skill of the chef. An expensive test for sure.

I had to go at this point (I had been up since frickin early o’ clock) leaving the rest to play a game of Saboteur 2.

But it looks like we have found a new home for Friday night gaming and to hold our D&D sessions. Which is quite exciting.

Well you know how this post is going to end. Here’s Johnny!

Photos taken by Jonathan

An impossible task

Uncategorized

Earlier today on Twitter Osprey Games asked an impossible task?

Obviously my first reaction was to call it out as crazy talk.

But Osprey Games or their intern running their social media said to “Consider it a new year spring clean”.

Where do you start? Especially when (according to the bgstats app) I have 282 owned games! Yeah you read that correctly. I still find it hard to believe. I look at the games and think “never that many”. But apparently there is.

Do we get the game plus the expansions? That could affect the choices.

Well Scythe would have to be one of them. After all back in 2017 (iirc) that was my number 1 game of all time. And I don’t think that’s changed.

I think Wingspan would make the final five. And that ticks the engine builder box.

Magic the Gathering or more specifically my Commander decks would be on the list. Using the precons makes it like a board game!

Dune Imperium would kill two birds with one stone of deckbuilder and worker placement. As we know it edges it over Lost Ruins of Arnak for me.

The final slot has to be D&D. But this could easily be any one of the RPGs that I own. Although with my “library” of D&D books it does have the edge over the others.

But there are so many other games that I own and love playing, such as Twilight Imperium 4 or Tapestry. Or how about Lost Cities, Santorini or Onitama? How could I leave them out?

That’s why this is so impossible to do. I have so many great games that I love playing.

Nordic Inspired Horror

RPG, vaesen

I finally pulled the trigger and ordered a copy of the Vaesen rpg from Free League.

The plan is to use it for a one shot or two with our role playing group. Starting hopefully next weekend.

It’ll be touch and go if the physical bundle (core rules, GM screen, dice, map and cards) that Free League sell will be here by then. But luckily ordering from Free League means I get a digital (pdf) copy of the core rules almost immediately. So that is my “light” reading this week.

Vaesen is a “dark Gothic setting steeped in Nordic folklore and the old myths of Scandinavia. The game mechanics utilize an adapted version of the award- winning Year Zero Engine.(read d6)”

Vaesen is set during the nineteenth century, from what I can guess around about when the industrial revolution is beginning. I’m thinking the age of steam. You can definitely use trains to travel long distances.

“In the nineteenth century, Scandinavia is changed by industrialization, war, and revolutions, and new ways of thinking and understanding the world are spreading through its universities. Old truths are being questioned. The rural poor are pouring into the cities or across the Atlantic to escape starvation, hoping to build a life where they can be free.” Vaesen Core Rulebook page 6

But there seems to be a clash between the old and the new, especially these vaesen and the world of man.

“Throughout history, supernatural vaesen have lived side by side with the people of Scandinavia. But these creatures are not perceptible to human senses – unless they choose to be.” Vaesen Core Rulebook page 6

However…

“Some people in Scandinavia are able to see the vaesen, even when they are trying to stay invisible – it is called “having the Sight.” You are one of them.” Vaesen Core Rulebook page 6

“You and several others who also have the Sight have gathered in Upsala in central Sweden. You have learned that there used to be an organization called the Society. Their mission was to study and combat the vaesen, but the last members of the Society went missing or left the organization about ten years ago, and since then the Society’s headquarters – the old Castle Gyllencreutz by the Fyris River in Upsala – has been left to decay. You have decided to re-establish this organization.” Vaesen Core Rulebook page 7

But it’s all of the above that attracted me to the game. It’s not your usual fantasy setting. It’s also not your murder hobo party. There is more to it, you can’t just go around killing the monsters. The games are more mystery and solving the mystery, and being creative.

I’ll look more in-depth when I get the physical stuff.

You all know I like to share movies, tv shows and books that I think would act as “inspiration”. Below are some that came to mind.

Funky Vampire Morning!

Funkoverse, Game day, Rivals, Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, vampire the masquerade: rivals, Vampire Wednesday Morning

My first gaming of 2022 was with Diego this morning.

The session started off so well with home made cheese cake and espresso coffee (for once hot! – Diego’s words not mine). I hadn’t expected the cheese cake but it was a most pleasant surprise. Despite only a couple of days earlier having teased Diego that he had made cake for another friend they had had round for coffee, but never me.

After a most enjoyable (ok it was amazing but need to under play it) slice of cheese cake the rest of the morning went down hill from there.

Our first game of the morning was a two player game of Vampire the Masquerade Rivals.

Tremere (Diego) vs Thin-blood (Me)

Once again it was a precon match up. We will get round to building our own decks. Honest.

Although I did manage to get all of my coterie out, I only drew one Alchemy card. Which was a pain.

However I did take out three citizens from the street. But I wasn’t taking them out fast enough to get the win.

I was undone by that ol’ Tremere blood magic. With Diego playing Grigori as his leader he was soon replacing the blood on my 1 blood potency vampires and then sending them to torpor when he paid for stuff with that blood.

Maybe I should have been more aggressive and attacked Grigori.

The final score of our game, confirming Diego’s victory.

Our next game was one I’d been wanting to get to the table for a while, Funkoverse.

I played Boom, Slash, Splash or T-Rex, Raptor and Jaws with Ghost companion. Whilst Diego chose The Black Widow, Arya with Needle, and Doc Brown.

Although I own a few of the Funkoverse sets, and therefore have a few maps. Having never played the game before I had no idea which maps were good for a first time play. So I chose the map on top of the stack of “smaller” map boards. Which just happened to be the map from the DC101 set. Diego chose which scenario we played for the map.

The scenario we played (chosen by Diego)

I’m not sure what advantage Jaws gets being submerged. I know whilst submerged it can’t do assist, challenge, or interact actions. It’s very thematic that’s for sure. But tactically I’m confused why you would want Jaws to be submerged.

We had done one big rules misplay. Once we interacted with a points marker we didn’t put the marker on the cool down track. We kept having a nagging feeling that we were missing something during the game. What was stopping you from camping next to a marker and interacting with it for both of your actions? If we had played it correctly I think there would have been different decisions and tactics used by us both.

I have to say Funkoverse looks lovely on the table. You are either a fan of the big headed character design or you are not! I obviously am a fan.

Game play wise, it might not be the most complicated skirmish game. But I like how it’s so quick to learn/pick up. It makes it very accessible I think.

Despite the fact I had already put together my team, I love how quick and easy team selection can be. It can be as simple as “I like that character, that character and that character”. Or you can look for synergies and make it a more complicated, in-depth affair.

Having double sided maps and four scenarios per set means you get a little variety in game play per set. However I think there is little or no variety in scenarios between sets. But I need to check that they are indeed similar/same.

This particular map did feel crowded with two three character teams. But that might have been to its advantage if we hadn’t done the misplay.

The final scores sadly show another Diego victory.

I look forward to getting Funkoverse back to the table, maybe with one of the bigger maps, different scenario, even with more players. Plus with the Thanos expansion it introduces ultimate mode, a one verses many game play. Which would be interesting to try.

After our gaming I had to pop into my place of employment to pick up a couple of things that I hadn’t been able to get elsewhere the day before. But thanks to Diego my purchases increased by a couple of items.

New Year New…

game challenges

I suppose I should firstly wish everyone a Happy New Year.

I hope the upcoming year is kinder on us all than last year.

One of the things people do is set New Year resolutions. I’ve done the gamer equivalent this year and created two new challenges!

The first is the “Play 20 New To Me Games” challenge. Which is the follow up to the narrowly failed “Play 15 New To Me Games” challenge that has just ended.

The second challenge I decided on after I had a moment of inspiration. The light bulb came on so to speak whilst discussing the super duper, easily one of the top 5 worker placement games of all time, The Manhattan Project, the card game version Chain Reaction, and sequel 2 Minutes to Midnight.

Despite owning 2 Minutes to Midnight I’d never ever got it to the table. I needed something to help encourage me to get this and other games in the collection I haven’t played to the table.

That’s when the idea came to me to setup a challenge in the bgstat app to do just that.

Hence the “Play my Unplayed Owned Games” challenge.

It was so easy to set up. I just had to tell it to add all my unplayed games to the new list. After removing games I knew I had played (but that was before I started using bgstat) I was left with 57 unplayed games in my collection!

That did surprise me a little. But then when I see how many games I have in the collection, that number always amazes me. It doesn’t look that many for sure!

How I got to that many unplayed games I have no idea.

Both new challenges will run for a full calendar year this time. I don’t expect to complete the unplayed games challenge. But it sure would be nice to make a good dent into it.

My Game of 2021 is…

annual awards

I suppose this is the third and final post in what has turned out to be a poorly conceived and written annual review for 2021.

Before I go on and pick my game of 2021. I should just recap the criteria for qualifying as a candidate to be chosen as a potential game of the year.

There are basically only two criteria to make the “short list”. First the game has to be a new to me game. So basically a game I haven’t played before. Secondly I have to have played it in that calendar year.

The candidates for this years game of the year are…

It’s a pretty strong list. A nice mix of new and old to chose from.

However my game of 2021 is …

My Game of the Year 2021 – Dune Imperium

This won’t come as a surprise to anyone. Despite Gavin not liking it. But he’s wrong on this. We have to remember the cards in this game and Vampire the Masquerade Rivals (the runner up to my game of the year) hated him (how he upset the card gods I don’t know) and coloured his judgement on those games. Plus he likes Barenpark. It’s all we need to know.

What can I say? This mashup of worker placement and deckbuilding is awesome.

This is what I said about Dune Imperium back in October about what I liked about it.

“The unique player abilities (which I believe the Arnak expansion adds), the combat, twice as many rounds, the influence tracks, the worker placement plus the reveal stage, dual use cards, the take that element. Oh and that the scoring is much closer.”

Naturally I love the theme. I’m a fan of the books. Love Lynch’s movie adaptation (more than the very visually impressive recent Villeneuve cinematic outing). I think using art based on the latest movie works well.

I’m looking forward to the imminent (January?) arrival of the first expansion. It looks very exciting and shakes things up.

Dune Imperium my game of 2021.

My Gaming Year 2021

by the numbers, game challenges, gaming stats, stats

In my previous blog post I waffled on about the game challenges I’d set up in the bgstat app I use, and how I fell just short of achieving the Play 15 New Games to Me challenge.

You may have also noticed in that post and later on in this one the 3×3 or 4×4 image grid of game covers. I used to produce these using an app called Diptic and having to do a Google image search to find each relevant game box image. But now the bgstat generates these for me with out all that extra effort! What a great new (well to me, not sure when it was added) feature.

2021 has been an interesting year to say the least gaming wise. It wasn’t until the later half of the year before world events allowed in person gaming to become a thing again. I have to say I missed playing with others a lot. So it was really great to be doing that again.

Fenland Gamers has grown in size! By that I mean those that attend gaming sessions on a regular basis. This has been amazing, and the new members have been really great to game with. Because of this success we ended the year saying good bye to our hosts The Luxe.

We still live in uncertain times. Who knows what 2022 has in store for us. Hopefully despite what it decides to throw at us we can continue to meet up, play games, and share good times.

As with more recent stat posts I’m not going to attempt to analyse the data. I’m going to just put the data out there and let it speak for itself.

But first for those that aren’t interested in anything other than my top 9 played games of 2021, here is a snazzy 3×3 image grid of those games.

My Top 9 Most Played Games of 2021

And now for those that want more details here are the stats for my gaming in 2021. The only thing you have to ignore from these stats is the time and days figures. I don’t record that data so those figures are basically gibberish. I’d also call bs on the number of players. It’s much much lower than that, less than 20 would be my guess. But this is due to me not adding everyone I play with as a named player. They only usually get added after I’ve played against/with them on a regular basis.

My Gaming Stats for 2021

So close

by the numbers, game challenges, gaming stats

I think it was a couple of months back I set myself some gaming challenges within the bgstat app.

It’s not something I do a lot of. However I thought why not?

Over the period covered by “lockdowns” and various restrictions belatedly introduced by our Tory overlords as some sort of token gesture towards dealing with world events, I had added one or two games and expansions to the collection.

It’s not as if I needed much encouragement to get any of those purchases to the table once gaming in person was once again a thing that we did.

Remembering what had been added during that period however would be more of a challenge.

So I set up a challenge to track those plays and to remind me what games and expansions had been purchased. Apparently there were 25 additions of one form or the other in that time.

One or two of those purchases would be considered for big boardgames. For example the Prophecy of Kings expansion for TI4 or the Mother of Dragons expansion for AGoT. They would be much much harder to get to the table.

But there are some big boardgames in my collection that I’d also like to see return to the table. So I set up a second challenge to encourage me to get some of those bigger games to the table.

Both of those challenges I have given myself until November 2022 to complete.

However I needed a more immediate challenge to aim for as well. Something achievable by the end of the year. So I set up a third challenge, to play 15 new to me games by the end of 2021.

With 2021 fastly coming to an end and no more gaming sessions planned before the challenge deadline. It does indeed look like I will have failed at this third challenge.

I’ve come within spitting distance of achieving it.

As the image above shows I’ve played 12 new to me games since August of this year. Two of which belong to someone else! Who happens to be the same person, Jonathan.

I think I’ll set up a similar challenge in the new year. At the moment my gut is telling me to set the target to 20 new to me games.

Oh and finally I got caught up with the reduced to clear section at Tesco and ended up getting a poker set for half price.

Christmas Eve Gaming

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Yes I know this post is appearing Boxing Day. I had to write about this at some point. There wasn’t time on the day. Well technically there was but I was too tired. After all I had been to work that morning, and then more or less gone straight to the game session (ran in the house changed and left).

Then yesterday was Christmas Day with all that entails. I just about got the post out wishing everyone seasonal greetings. However I did cook our roast beef, and all that goes with it. Which meant the beef was cooked to medium and not the over cooked well done.

However I digress. The point of this post is to talk about the Fenland Gamers Christmas Eve gaming session.

Traditionally the Christmas Eve session has been the first of the club’s three Christmas holidays gaming sessions. However this year it was to be our only planned club event, and our last for the foreseeable future at our hosts The Luxe.

Due to the number attending this gaming session and the restriction on the number of tables we were allowed to have set up (just the one). Our planned Bohemian Villages game was postponed into the new year and our “new” venue. Which means I am still the current reigning Bohemian Villages Champion.

Luckily Jonathan had games with him that played on the larger player count side. I hadn’t had time to grab anything specific (remember I barely had time to change out of work clothes) I had just grabbed my bag from our last session that was of no use.

Our first game of the afternoon was Jewel Heist.

Jewel Heist falls into what I would call Resistance style games, or hidden role/social deduction games.

The theme of this game is in the name! Thieves are trying to steal jewels whilst the detectives are trying to workout who the thieves are and make an arrest before all the jewels are gone.

In Jewel Heist there are physical jewels the thieves have to take! And that is where we start to see how Jewel Heist differentiates itself from other games in the genre.

This game relies on sound! What did you hear while your eyes were closed? Did you hear a marble falling? Did you hear someone moving? Which direction did the sound come from? Any audible clue to help narrow down the suspects.

There is also a time pressure on the thieves whilst taking the jewels. They have 15 seconds to pull off the heist each round. So they don’t get all the time in the world to pull off the perfect crime. They are forced to quick and potentially noisy.

I didn’t think I’d like this reliance on sound and the time restriction but it worked really well, and I found myself enjoying it.

Although I would say a rectangular table probably isn’t the optimal table for this game, and that a circular one would have been much much better.

The game then borrows from Cash ‘n Guns for its voting system of who players think are thieves for each round by pointing fingers (not foam guns) simultaneously. Another clever way of differentiating itself.

Overall I think this is a nice addition to the genre. It’s different enough to make it standout. Although it seemed overly complicated/fiddly with the jewel tower, it wasn’t. It’s a fairly streamlined fun.

We played best of three games. It ended up the thieves winning two games to one. And I was never on the winning side.

Our final game of the afternoon was Saboteur. I think all we need to take away from this fun hidden role game was I didn’t win, and neither did Jonathan. Although he did get more points than me!

Although it’s been about two years since I played Saboteur, and I do enjoy playing it. Why haven’t I added it to my collection? I think I did look at getting it not long after first playing it. But why I never pulled the trigger I have no idea. Most likely won’t be adding it any time soon. I think there are three members now with copies.

I had a great afternoons gaming with some great people.

At the end of the session we collected my other table and they both left with us to go to their new home.

Oh I also had a delivery Christmas Eve. The Kickstarter stretch goal packs for Fields of Green and it’s expansion Grand Fair (which I don’t currently own) arrived from Artipia Games.

Fields of Green KS stretch goals and Promos

I love that Artipia sell these, and wish more publishers did this.