A civil gaming night

Fenland Gamers, game night

Friday evening once again saw The Luxe hosting The Fenland Gamers. Once again the evening was well attended. In fact if there hadn’t been a couple of last minute dropouts due to life stuff, we would have been up to three tables and our best ever attended session.

Before hand I had put a call out for interest in playing Civilization A New Dawn (CAND) with the Terra Incognita (TI) expansion. It would be tight but it should be playable in the time we usually have for a game night.

As normal I got to The Luxe ahead of time to get the tables set up, and because it was a “big” game I was playing start setting up the board.

Luckily I have organised my copy of CAND so that everything each player needs (other than choosing a civilization) is in one bag. It speeds things up both setting up and tearing down.

As a group we decided to choose our civilisations randomly from new ones in the TI expansion.

Who got what civilisations

Then it was time to go over the rules. It wasn’t the best explanation, I was rusty (nearly 3 years since I last played it) and combat was left until one of us needed to do it.

TI changes things up pretty drastically for CAND. From setting up the board, introduction of fortresses and the objective cards related to them, exploring, districts, armies and combat, unique civilisation focus cards, new event dial, extended focus bar and government tiles. Oh and nearly forgot a fifth player (which should only be used with the expansion).

I enjoyed CAND. It did give that civ like experience in a streamlined game. And I really loved the focus track. However! With the addition of TI CAND gets taken to a new level for me. Spoiler alert, I won’t be playing CAND without the expansion. Yes it’s that good.

The unique civilisation focus cards make each civilisation feel even more unique than they already are. I love the growing map from exploration (something I forgot in game I could do). Fortresses were interesting. I liked that controlling them were victory conditions that if you lost control meant you lost that victory point. Which is the opposite to the other victory conditions, which once gained you don’t lose. So the fortresses become ways to deny an opponent from winning.

I liked the addition of armies and the tweaks to combat. It just felt better. It’s certainly an improvement. A big improvement. The government tiles are a nice addition, allowing a focus card with one on to be activated earlier but act as if it was one or two spaces more advanced depending on the tile. Districts is another great addition and can be very powerful when activated.

Naturally the event dial has changed to cater for the additions to the game. I also like how now when the appropriate space is reached on the event dial wonders get a trade token placed on them. This acts as a reduction to the cost of buying the wonder. When a second trade token will be placed on a wonder all tokens are removed off the wonder and it is discarded, and the one underneath revealed. I love how this means the wonder trade row does not remain static and stale.

As you can see from the photo above (I played red) I was cut off from everyone else. My path blocked by a fortress and a city-state. I failed on two or three attempts to capture the fortress (bad die rolls). My wagons couldn’t get passed the city-state. You can see why I’m kicking myself after the fact about forgetting to explore.

However despite not achieving a single objective and coming last I still had an enjoyable game. Jeff won. His civilisation ability would have been perfect for where I was on the board.

As is now the new normal for these club posts I end with a couple of photos taken by Jonathan.

The other table. Photos by Jonathan

Looking forward to our monthly meet up this coming Wednesday.

Tapestry gets Arts and Architecture expansion

news

I should have posted about this a couple of days ago, but I’ve been concentrating on getting ready for an interview. Which went well, and means I now have gainful employment.

However it really hit home that Nan is no longer with us when I couldn’t share the good news with her. She was the first person I wanted to tell.

I start this Saturday.

Now onto the reason for this post. Jamey Stegmaier of Stonemaier Games has announced the second expansion for Tapestry called Arts and Architecture.

Image taken from the Stonemaier website

Over the next 2 weeks Jamey will be revealing details about the new expansion. The review embargo lifts on the 16th November. Then on the 1st December preorders open up.

This new expansion has been designed by Mike Young and Jamey Stonemaier.

So what does this new expansion contain? On the official web page it lists “new capital city mats, a new advancement track featuring new types of cards and tiles, plus more civilizations, tapestry cards, tech cards, and landmark miniatures/cards”.

In a recent live cast on Facebook Jamey confirmed that you can play with the new stuff without the 5th advancement track if so inclined. Any new cards that refer to it can be ignored, discarded, and then just draw a new card.

Photos taken from the Stonemaier Facebook page. Photos taken by Tim Chuon.

There is a new 20 sided science die to cater for the additional advancement track. As you can see in the photos above the new landmark models look amazing.

Those small purple cards are masterpiece cards and associated with the new advancement track. Sadly they are not a regular card size (by that I mean 63.5mm by 88mm) so until we know the dimensions (we will find out in the next design diary) we won’t know if we can sleeve them. I hope we can. I have all the other cards in the game sleeved. And when I find a way to sleeve the cities, civilisations and player boards I will be doing those too.

In the same live cast as mentioned above Jamey did say that a third expansion for Tapestry is dependent on how well this second expansion does. Going by the excitement of the Tapestry Facebook group it will be popular with the existing fan base. But generally expansions tend to sell a fraction of the base games numbers. In the past I’ve seen figures between 10 to 20% of the original games sales. I’m also not sure how well Tapestry has sold. I don’t think it has hit Scythe numbers, and definitely hasn’t got close to the heights of Wingspan. Tapestry has been a very strong marmite game with players. I fall into the love it camp, as do the two new players I introduced to the game last weekend. So I’m hoping that we do see a third expansion. But if not I’m content with what we have already.

You can find links to design dairies (as they are released), reviews, etc on the Stonemaier website HERE.

Stay fluid

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Well the plans for getting Tapestry and it’s expansion Plans and Ploys did change. One of the players had to drop out. We knew it was a possibility. One we hoped wouldn’t happen, but that’s life in the current world events. It was out of the control of everyone.

However as Confucius said ‘The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm.’ a last minute plea for players was answered with a maybe. Our plan was still alive but we wouldn’t know until mid day if it would survive.

But survive it did, so Marcin, Julie and myself met at The Luxe to build our civilisations and see which one would be the victorious.

I had one aim in this game. I wanted to get into space. I’d never done it before and it was something cool I wanted to do. Even if doing so meant I didn’t win.

Naturally the Plans and Ploys adds more tapestry cards, more civilisations, more technologies, more tiles. And that sort of stuff is always welcome. However the new landmark cards I liked. All three of us got our personal landmarks out during the game. Which was cool. I liked how they gave you something to possibly aim for.

I think the title of this blog post and the Confucius quote best describes my approach to Tapestry when playing. You need to be able to adapt to changing circumstances, mainly from the tapestry cards you draw or play. At one point I was planning to play one tapestry card on my income phase however because of a conquer action that Marcin took I decided to play a different tapestry card to exploit that instead.

I managed to draw a few tapestry cards early on which included two trap cards. Which I did use. The first time I used one was with Marcin attacking the central tile that I controlled. Sadly he had one of the new cards that countered a trap card! Foiled. However the second time that Marcin tried taking over one of my lands the trap card was successful.

Somehow my civilisation did manage to get into space and discover a monolith (one of the new tiles). All very 2001 A Space Odyssey. But so cool. Getting into space didn’t disappoint.

Marcin was the first of us to do the final income round, and in doing so set the score of 136 that Julie and I had to try and beat in our final income rounds.

Julie was next and did really well to get over 50 victory points to take her into first place with 138 points.

Then it was my turn. For the majority of the game I had been languishing well behind the other two. My final two ages saw me catch up and move into second place. But could I get enough points to win? I wasn’t sure I could. I thought I’d end up last. However after my final income round I slide into first place by a point.

It was a very very close game in the end. But whether you win by a single point (as I did today) or by a country mile it’s still just a win at the end of the day.

Final scores

Just realised as I write this post after the fact I missed 10 points for reaching the end of a development track! Doh!

It was a great afternoon gaming, great to get Tapestry to the table again, great hosts, and great friends.

Oh the title of this post I took from S.W.A.T., it’s what the team leader Hondo says to his team before they leave the tactical vehicle to respond to an incident.

Vampire Tapestries!

Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, vampire the masquerade: rivals, Vampire Wednesday Morning

Wednesday saw Diego and I go head to head in a 2 player game of Vampire the Masquerade: Rivals. In this game we played the two new clans Tremere and Thin-bloods from the first expansion for the game Blood and Alchemy.

I played Thin-bloods, whilst Diego went with Tremere.

It’d been over a month since we last played. So we were a bit rusty on the rules! Plus add on the fact these were completely new decks that we hadn’t even looked at before hand. It was no wonder that this one game took a couple of hours!

It’s obvious that we were not playing the decks optimally, having to look up rules, made misplays, definitely had rules mistakes. But we had fun.

I enjoyed playing Thin-Bloods. You definitely need all your vampires out and attacking en masse. I liked the gaining an extra action on a turn ability that certain actions/cards gave. I also liked the -1 token and using that to reduce the blood potency of opponents vampires. It’s definitely a fun deck to play.

In the end the game went to the wire with either of us being able to get the win. Both of us missed opportunities to grab victory. But sadly for Diego it was me that made the final break through and won.

The next expansion The Wolf and The Rat is now up for preorder on the Renegade web store. This expansion adds two new clans Gangrel and Nosferatu. Plus preorder bonuses of Tamaska and General Flint Alt Art Cards, and until the end of October a Victor Temple Promo card (previously only available at GenCon). Naturally this has been preordered.

I have also ordered the first three organised play kits for season 1. Apparently a season runs from GenCon to GenCon. Once the kits arrive I’ll give me views on them and where the kits are going.

There are plans afoot to finally get Tapestry back to the table this weekend.

During the global events of the last 18 months or more Stonemaier Games had the first expansion for Tapestry Plans and Ploys come out. Or more accurately it may have been just before. But that’s not important. What is, is that those events got in the way of any plans to get Tapestry and the expansion to the table.

After making arrangements to get Civilization A New Dawn with its first expansion Terra Incognita to the table at the next Friday gaming session (it’s going to be tight fitting it in) I knew I had to make an effort to get Tapestry to the table too. TI4 and it’s expansion is going to require military precision planning, so that won’t be soon.

So a shout out went on the clubs discord server for interested parties. Plans were made, written in pencil, and reliant on circumstances beyond our control.

At the moment it’s looking good. But until we are all sitting round a table, game setup and we are taking actions whilst enjoying beverages purchased from our amazing hosts The Luxe cinema I won’t believe it’s happening!

Here’s hoping for best laid plans and all that.

Great advice and free adventure from The Arcane Library

D&D, DM/GM Tips, RPG

With Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft that came out earlier in the year it’s never been “easier” to create a horror adventure in D&D for this most commercial of occasions.

However you may want some further advice in a more concise format like say talking pictures.

A couple of days ago Kelsey of The Arcane Library posted a new YouTube video on how to write horror for D&D. Not only do we get some great advice but there is also a free adventure The Night Hunter for a party of level 1 adventurers to use this all hallows eve (or any other time) she wrote along with a walk through of running the adventure.

You can download the free adventure mentioned by Kelsey (and also linked on the YouTube video) here.

One year I’ll be organised enough to run a spooktacular scary one shot to participate in this yearly commercialized faux celebration. Until then “need more brains, uuuuurgh!”

Winner, winner, chicken dinner

Fenland Gamers, game night

Two weeks has just flown by. Last night saw another club night of gaming on a Friday evening at our fantastic hosts The Luxe Cinema.

Once again the evening was well attended. And that’s despite life forcing two attendees to stay away until they are clean again! So instead of 10 attending we had 8.

I’d spent the afternoon combining the Oceania expansion for Wingspan into my copy of the game, in the hope it might get to the table in the evening.

However I’d forgotten Gavin had wanted to try Dune Imperium which I also had with me. So that once more hit the table. I’m not complaining I love the game. I got to try another leader Helena Richese, which was forced on me because Julie took Duke Leto this time. I do think the next couple of club nights I’ll be leaving the game at home, unless someone asks me to bring it along.

You can see below who played what in this game.

Who played what in Dune Imperium

I really liked Helena and her on going ability as it changed drastically how I played the game. Basically I didn’t have to worry about those spaces unless I wanted the mentat. It took the pressure off taking them before anyone else. The signet ring ability was also pretty cool. For me I was pretty restrained in using it to hate remove a card to deny the others. I only did that once to remove a card that when purchased pushed the player up one spot on all the influence tracks.

Like our game of Vampire the Masquerade Rivals, Gavin’s deck hated him! Which tainted his experience a little I think. It’s fair to say that Gavin didn’t enjoy Dune Imperium. Part of that was having to play cards with the relevant symbol on to go to a space. Often there would be a space he’d want to go to but not have the card to do it. I don’t see that as an issue. I’ve experienced it. I had it in the previous games, and I had it in this one. However I looked at what I could do, and tried to use those to set up a big future turn.

I was pretty chuffed that I got both Jessica cards and got to play them together. They combo nicely.

This game went to the last conflict round. Up for grabs were two influence track positions for the winner. This was crucial to my plan. Diego and I were neck and neck. I’d got two intrigue cards that would get me victory points. However I failed on one of them because I was short by 1 persuasion to buy one of the spice must flow cards. That would have nabbed me 2 victory points if I’d had enough!

Dune Imperium

I did have enough spice to buy the other victory point though.

The crucial part of my plan? Oh that was to win the combat, jump up two spaces on the Fremen influence track and take the Fremen alliance from Diego. Basically forcing a 2 point swing. Diego would lose a point and I’d gain one. That’s how things unfolded. My forces stormed to victory on the combat phase. And the victory was even more sweet having pulled off this point steal.

Final scores

Whilst basking in the glow of victory we decided to play For Sale.

I hadn’t played For Sale before. So after a quick run through of the rules from Gavin, bidding commenced.

There really isn’t much to the game.

However I enjoyed the bidding round. I like the choices you have to make. Like when to drop out, or do you try and force the price up to drain your opponents of money? I did deliberately start the bidding high on one occasion to drain the others of money. I think that worked this game as I was able to pick up the two highest value cards.

For Sale

The purchase round was also fun. I liked the playing of cards blind then all revealing at the same time. I think it was easy for me to get the two highest value cards. All I had to do was save the two highest cards for those rounds. I also through away my lowest cards when there was no 0 cost card to get.

Obviously this time these tactics worked for me as I won.

Final scores

I liked the game. It’s relatively quick to play and teach. Has some decision making to make. It’s fun. A nice filler game.

I finish this post about a great evening gaming (any evening when I win the games I play is great) with a picture of the other table and some photos taken by Jonathan. I’m sure Jonathan will be kind to us and leave a comment sharing which games they played.

The other table
Photos taken by Jonathan

How to random table adventure ideas

D&D, DM/GM Tips, RPG

Recently (in the last month) there have been two great videos put out on YouTube that show creating ideas for adventures using random tables.

I like these type of videos as they basically act as “how to” videos, and also give a sneak peak in to the creative process of those doing the video.

Plus we all know how I feel about using random tables to generate ideas. So I’m bound to be biased and love these videos.

The first video is by Kelsey aka The Arcane Library, and the tables used are from the pretty amazing book Tome of Adventure Design.

Kelsey has talked about this before in her adhoc enewsletter and I followed those steps in a previous post (there was a second post too).

I’m looking forward to when Kelsey does part two.

The second video is by Mike aka Sly Flourish who did this video as part of his current Kickstarter for the Lazy DM’s Companion.

The Companion is the third book in the Lazy DM series, and is chock full of guidelines and adventure generators (read themed tables) to inspire you.

It’s those adventure generators that Mike uses in these videos, in particular the ones from the free sample pdf on the Kickstarter (you don’t even have to be a backer to get it!)

What I like about the generators aka tables in the Companion is that they are themed. Otherwise they most definitely scratch my random generation itch that I get. Maybe I should follow in Mike’s foot steps and do a post using the generators (although I’ll use the pdf of them from the Patreon instead of the freebie sample). I mean I have done posts following Kelsey’s steps previously. Only right I should do the way of the Lazy DM too.

UPDATE 22/10/22: Last night Mike aka Sly Flourish did another twitch stream as part of his Kickstarter that is part two to his Let’s Make an Adventure video. It’s now on YouTube (embedded below). In this one Mike goes into how to fill out a dungeon. Well worth a watch.

UPDATE 18/11/21: A couple of days ago (it might be 3 or 4, dats are blurring into each other these days) Kelsey live-streamed the second part to her video I embedded above. Just like that one I’ve embedded it below so everything is in one nice handy place.

I’m also embedding a recent video from Sly Flourish about building lazy magic items. It fits in with the whole theme of this post and using tables to inspire and create content.

Rolling Wingspan

game night

Earlier in the week a friend and club member (you never leave Fenland Gamers!) who had moved out of the area for life reasons, enquired if anyone was free Friday evening for some gaming because they were back for the day. Naturally I was as was Jonathan. So plans were made.

Last night saw the fruition of those plans.

At the appointed time Charlie, Jonathan and myself met up at The Luxe to catch up over a game or two (time allowing).

Our game for the evening was Wingspan plus both expansions (European and Oceania, although technically we had a third with the swift-start expansion also mixed in). We were using Jonathan’s copy of the game because he had everything already mixed together.

This was the first time since the start of world events oh so long ago now that I’ve played Wingspan in real life, and the second expansion Oceania. Which I was keen to do. It was also a first for Charlie who had never played the game before.

So after a rules run through from both Jonathan and myself for Charlie we started attracting birds to our reservations. Even with the expansions and particularly the nectar side I still think Wingspan is not too much to teach to new players. By the time they have taken a couple of turns they have the basics grasped. After that it’s getting to grips with building that engine and evaluating cards. You can’t teach that, just give advice.

Early on I got a nice resource engine going that meant every time I collected resources I was getting four instead of two, plus tucking a bird or two. I also had a cool end of round ability in place that allowed me to discard up to 5 food to tuck cards from the deck up to the same number of discarded food. That was a nice little synergy.

Charlie also had a nice little extra value set up on the food as well. I think Jonathan was the only one who wasn’t getting extra resources when doing a food run.

So what did I think of the Oceania expansion? I liked the nectar. Having a wild resource that is basically use it or lose it, is nice. But throw in the majority end of game scoring for who used the most nectar in each of the three habitats does add a nice additional tactic and battleground during play.

The end of game ability was a new addition if I remember correctly. I nearly played a card with one that would have given me three/four additional points at the end. But that card got tucked. However I like the idea.

I do like the new player mats and the changes to them. I’ve already mentioned the nectar. But now some of the spaces allow you to discard a card or resource to reset the bird feeder or the bird trade row before doing the action on that space. Plus similarly you can on some discard either to get that extra card, egg or food. I love this change. That increased flexibility makes things easier and doesn’t favour one engine type over another.

Wingspan plus expansions

As for the other additions of more birds, more bonuses, more end of round stuff. The more the better.

There has definitely been an effort with the expansions to make the eggs tactic a less viable route to victory. Which is a welcome design choice. Having various paths to victory keeps the game fresh. With all the cards from all three expansions mixed in the odds of getting that raven combo in the opening hand is greatly reduced. Which isn’t a bad thing either.

I think I was the only one of us to get something from their bonus card. And as you can see from the end of round scoring I cleaned up there too.

As you can see from the final scoring I ran away with the victory. Sadly fell short of the 100 point barrier.

Charlie had to hit the road after the game finished. So after saying our farewells I showed Jonathan Rolling Realms. I’m so impressed by the component quality.

I’ve said this before, but I don’t care what you think of the games by Stonemaier Games, the one thing you can’t take away from them is the amazing production quality of the games. They go above and beyond setting the standard others are judged by.

I love the large chunky d6 dice that come with Rolling Realms. Card used for the dry erase boards is a nice thickness. You get dry erase pens, little clothes to clean them with. Plus that amazing tough textured paper (first introduced with Wingspan) for the rule books.

There aren’t many components in a roll and write but this knocks it out of the park.

We ended up having a game of Rolling Realms.

Now I liked Rolling Realms. I like the puzzle element of it. I love the variability.

Even though each round has 9 turns they pass pretty quickly. Before you realise it you are on that final turn wishing you had one or two more turns left.

Naturally for us playing the game for the first time we were learning the realms for the first time also. One or two were a little confusing at first. The actual general rules are pretty quick and easy to pick up.

Rolling Realms

As a roll and write Rolling Realms is pretty solid. There is no player interaction. Which makes it perfect for playing remotely using a webcam. It’s great for large group play because of this, and supports an unlimited number of players. Which is pretty unique. Naturally you need enough copies of the game to support the number of players or use the print and play.

As you can see the game was pretty close, it basically came down to me having 3 more resources than Jonathan.

I had a great evening, it was great to catch up with Charlie. And the icing on the cake I beat Jonathan (twice).

I finish this post with a couple of photos taken by Jonathan of the evening.

Jonathan’s view of the evening! His photos.

Monthly Meetup October 2021

Fenland Gamers, game night

Last night saw the first monthly meet up since global stuff kicked off.

It was looking like the trend set by the fortnightly Friday sessions of being well attended was going to continue. However we ended up with half the numbers expected turning up. Life changes plans, and the assumption was it had indeed changed the plans of those unable to attend.

However it can not be said we did not give a socially suitable amount of time for them to arrive before starting to play Dune Imperium.

I know it’s hitting the table a lot at the moment. However Marcin (a new member) had wanted to try the game as it was on his list of games to get. And who am I to disappoint?

So after a run through of the rules, the battle for Arrakis commenced.

Once again I played Duke Leto. I like the powers of the character, that discount makes a big difference. It allowed me on round three to get the extra agent and the seat on the high council. Jonathan likes playing Paul.

In this game despite having the solari to get the extra agent and on the high council in the first round I didn’t get the cards to do either in the second round. So that round ended up being a setup round.

I was also pretty slow in getting started on the score track. However I made up for that and soon caught up.

I did manage to get some good extra card draw going during the game. So I was pleased with that.

In one of the stage 3 conflict rounds near the end I did play an intrigue card to help Jonathan win the conflict against Marcin, and get me third place. It didn’t matter at that point if Jonathan got two victory points. But it did if Marcin got them as he would have been a point away from victory.

Our game nearly had me winning in round 9 but I couldn’t scrape out that extra victory point to do so. Which meant for the majority of the last round there was a three way tie for first place until Marcin bought a Spice Must Flow Card in his reveal stage to get the winning point.

In that final round I managed to avoid Jonathan stealing a victory point from me, and failed to return the favour. Which felt good to deny him that. Would have been better to have flipped his plan on him and to have won. That would have been a sweet sweet victory. But sadly in this reality it never happened.

Final scores

It was another fun evening of gaming. Looking forward to the next club night. And a big big thank you to our hosts for the evening The Luxe cinema.