FFG In-flight Report 2021 Reaction

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In the middle of last night FFG streamed this years In-flight Report from the safety of their headquarters instead of from a hall at GenCon. Which considering the state of things (especially over there) is a wise decision.

Having watched the stream this morning. I have to say I’m pretty glad I didn’t decide to stay up and watch it live.

My overall opinion of the announcements is meh! I was really left feeling underwhelmed.

This In-flight report was all about expansions and repackaging stuff. Apart from Unfathomable, which they are hoping will be out by the end of September (but we all know what a mess shipping is, so that may slide) we are looking at all this stuff coming out sometime in 2022. I know they said Q1 or first half. But let’s be realistic here. Even with such general indications of when stuff will be coming out. I can’t see the shipping problems being resolved that soon, and expect most of 2022 to be much like it is now. Full of good intentions, but lots of delays.

Arkham Horror lcg, Marvel Champions, and Descent Legend of the Dark got the expansion love. There was a brief recap of the Keyforge hiatus announcement from the other day.

The LoTR lcg core set is getting a revision to make it easier for new players to get into this 10 year old game. Which will also see select story arcs from over that period get reprinted using the new expansion format introduced for the Arkham Horror lcg. They are also making the campaign cards in this revised edition available as a print on demand for existing long term players. Plus two scenarios from a limited edition of the game are getting a reprint.

FFG announced that Twilight Imperium celebrates 25 years next year. Which is pretty cool. How are they celebrating this awesome achievement? They have teamed up with CMoN to produce some graphic novels. There will also be some graphic novels set in the Android universe. And these will be coming to Kickstarter at some point. Which going by the latest CMoN Kickstarter means those of us in Europe are screwed.

The other “big” thing FFG announced is their partnership with a company to run web stores selling official FFG swag based on their IP. With the first web stores being for Legend of the Five Rings. Followed by Arkham Horror, then sometime after that Twilight Imperium.

The whole thing was wrapped up with a teaser for a much requested expansion. A fact the teaser played into.

I did like how the teaser was presented. But still it’s another expansion. And we will have wait for further details. Maybe there will be a bit more at Origins in a couple of weeks. One thing we can be sure of this will be a 2022 release.

know they spent 10 minutes talking about their R&D. But I’d prefer if they had spend that time announcing new games or just done a blog post. This was just filler.

This was FFG just treading water. A holding pattern. Resting on their laurels. It felt like FFG are stagnating. A pity they used to be an exciting company.

You can watch the full In-flight Report here.

Vampire Wednesday Morning on a Tuesday madness!

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Tuesday morning was this weeks Vampire Wednesday morning!

It threw out my usual weekly routine of doing the weekly shop on a Tuesday morning. But sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. And that greater good was I needed a break. Especially after having to miss the club night last Friday.

This weeks Rivals game would be a three player game.

Our third player was a friend of Diego’s Peet. He had never played the game before. But had done his homework and watched some of the how to play videos on YouTube.

This is how the clans broke down for the game:

  • Brujah – Peet (rival me)
  • Ventrue – me (rival Diego)
  • Malkavian – Diego (rival Peet)

As you can see from the fact I played Ventrue, that I continued to work my way through the core set clans. I just need to try Malkavian (so Diego won’t be playing them again next session). After that I’d like to try some deck construction using the core set, before trying the two clans in the Blood & Alchemy expansion.

Diego wanted to try the Malkavians in multiplayer to see if they worked better than in a two player game. And Peet got Brujah because they are a easier deck to pilot for a first game.

  • The Victor

I think one of the hurdles for new players to a card game like Rivals, and this is so true in something like Android Netrunner is learning the terminology.

In Rivals it’s things like Haven, Torpor and Coterie. Netrunner it was such terms as clicks, runs, and ice.

Unlike Diego who has played in the World of Darkness in years gone past. Rivals is my first time experiencing this world. I have no allegiance to a particular clan. At the moment my decision process is based on do they look cool, and mechanically/tactically do they fit with play styles I like?

At the start of our game Peet warned us that he’s a competitive player. Sadly he didn’t play the Brujah deck aggressively enough. Which allowed Diego and myself to get our slower decks going.

Agenda wise I was in the lead. I had two titles attached to two vampires. Boosted my havens secrecy to 2. Had a vagrant attached to my leader. I was ready for the appearance of an S.A.D. Agents in the street.

Peet finally started to attack my leader. Which I was more than able to handle. However he left one of his vampires open to attack from Diego. Which was enough of an opening for Diego to drain Peet’s remaining prestige whilst attacking that vulnerable vampire. And that gave Diego the win.

It was a fun game. I need to look at the Ventrue deck and see what cards are there, and the synergies. I would like to have hit more titles and have more ways to gain extra prestige. Which it might have and I just didn’t draw into them.

Catching my eye – pre-GenCon post

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I’m not sure where this post is going.

A quick Nan update. Nan improved a lot yesterday. It was easier getting food and drink into her. She was brighter. More herself. I think she has started to get over the urinary infection. The medicine from the doctor that she started taking yesterday afternoon will make sure of that. So good news.

Now onto game stuff.

Tail end of last week I found out that unsurprisingly there is an expansion for Dune: Imperium coming out called Rise of Ix.

Rise of Ix will give us 3 new houses to play. “Acquire technological innovations from the planet Ix for a lasting strategic advantage.” which will be via some sort of board extension I assume. The expansion will also have a new epic game mode.

Pretty excited about this expansion, despite not having got the core game to the table yet! I’d also like to get the deluxe upgrade kit, but not seen that for sale in the UK. But then again with the expansion coming out you’d think they might offer a deluxe upgrade for that too. Otherwise there will be a mismatch in player components when using the upgraded core game with the expansion.

I’ve mentioned previously (a long time ago) that Lost Ruins of Arnak was getting an expansion. That should be out pretty soon. It was given a GenCon release date. But with the mess shipping is at the moment it’s possible there might be a delay.

The expansion introduces six unique leaders that have their own unique powers and starting decks. So basically introducing an asymmetrical element to the game. It also brings in an alternative research track, new item and artifact cards, plus more guardians, assistants and sites.

Another no brainer. Luckily I have got the core game to the table. Guess what I liked it a lot. As did those I played it with. Within the week Gavin had his own copy!

One game I will be getting once it’s possible to order it is Rolling Realms by Stonemaier Games.

Jamey created Rolling Realms as a free print and play at the start of the pandemic. It stands out from other roll and writes in that it has no maximum player count!

However Jamey listens to his fan base that asked for a commercial release of the game. Which this is. Although this version of the game has a player count maximum of 6. It will play more with more copies of the game. So you are basically increasing the maximum player count by an additional 6 players per extra copy.

But like all things these days Rolling Realms release has been delayed by the world wide shipping issues.

There is also a new Tapestry expansion due to come out before the end of the year. But whether that happens is due to the shipping gods. If delays to games is our only problem in life the we should count ourselves lucky. However I still need to, you guessed it, get Tapestry and the first expansion to the table.

With GenCon next week there are bound to be lots of announcements about new games etc by the companies there and those that are not attending this year (of which there are a few).

First out of the block was this post by R Talsorian Games creators of Cyberpunk Red RPG. Funnily enough this post is about that RPG and their The Witcher RPG.

I’ll let you go read the post for The Witcher stuff. But I’m very interested in the Cyberpunk Red stuff they have coming out, such as the Data Pack (GM tools), Netrunning Deck (deck of cards), and Interface Red (a collection of the free articles). Plus an update on a couple of Cyberpunk Red projects that are currently being worked on.

The interesting thing other than the product info is the information about how not only the already mentioned shipping issues are affecting them. But also how world wide shortages of materials such as paper and cardboard are also having a knock on affect on production and release schedules. Let alone the difficulty of getting a slot in the over busy production companies production runs.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg in the UK. We are experiencing the perfect storm here of the above issues, plus the effects of the pandemic and the fallout of Brexit (self inflicted). Which adds up to it being harder, more expensive and slower getting stuff into the UK.

There will be implications to the consumer in the UK in the form of price rises. Asmodee UK has never been shy of passing these on as quick as possible. Funnily they don’t seem to drop prices.

There will be another post after GenCon about anything that caught my eye. Until then stay safe.

May be irregular posts for a while

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What does board gaming mean to me?

I love it.

For a brief time the stuff going on in life is not wearing me down. It’s a break. A distraction. My social life.

I got a similar benefit from another activity I love backpacking/hiking. Sadly life over the last decade has meant that was not an option. But playing board games is.

Both activities have lead to great friendships, and great memories.

That break I mentioned, it is so important as a full time carer. A couple of hours here, half a day there. It might not seem like much. But it makes all the difference. Believe me.

So deciding not to go to this evenings club gaming session is a big thing for me. I didn’t make the decision lightly.

But considering how my Nan has been the last couple of days, and is today I can’t go.

I’ve tweeted about the emotional toll that Mum and I are paying caring for Nan. Especially over the last few weeks. It’s a price we gladly pay. After all it’s my Nan.

However watching her slowly decline, refuse to eat, not even open her eyes, or speak clearly (she barely mumbles now). It’s hard.

As I write this post we are awaiting a nurse visit. But you know there isn’t much that can be done.

UPDATE 10/9/21 15:30 : the nurse has been and checked Nan and seems happy Nan doesn’t have an infection (after listening to chest and taking temp). She has a urine sample to get tested. So we await the results. Which will be next week sometime I assume.

To paraphrase a popular saying, we are praying for a miracle but expecting the worst.

So if it’s quiet on here for a while, it’s most likely because I’m not up to writing anything. I’ll pop in with the portal posts if that’s the case.

Be safe folks.

UPDATE 10/9/21: part 2. It’s been a tough day emotionally. Not just with what’s going on with Nan but today is also the anniversary of my dad’s death. Which ironically is a hash tag day for World Suicide Prevention Day. So socially media today has helped make the day extra painful. 33 years since dad took his life and it doesn’t get easier.

UPDATE 11/9/21: we didn’t have to wait for the results of the pee test. Within an hour the nurse had called back and said Nan has a urinary infection. I would also be able to pick up from the pharmacy a prescription for liquid antibiotics. Sadly when I went to pick the prescription up they had none in stock. So I have to go back later today to pick it up. It won’t be easy getting Nan to take this but much easier than a pill.

A problem to solve by Friday

Fenland Gamers

There is no mid week games this week. No Vampire Wednesday Morning with Diego. No Commander with Gavin and Diego.

There is however a club night this Friday.

The first club night since world events meant they had to be stopped.

I’m pretty excited about it but also a tad anxious.

If all come who said they are coming, this will be the best attended Friday night session ever. Plus there is also the possibility that the numbers may be more if we get members turning up that hadn’t replied to the event.

With so many coming I don’t think we have enough table space.

There is our 6ft x 3ft folding club table. Which even splitting into two groups would be cramped. Ideally we would be three gaming groups on the night. Which means three tables.

The club table could get six round it, three each end, as long as the games being played are not space hogs.

Hopefully Jonathan, the manager of The Luxe (our hosts) and myself can work something out.

Portal finally release their version of Neuroshima Hex

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The weekend saw Portal Games finally release their in-house developed port of their classic board game Neuroshima Hex.

I was wondering how Portal would handle the free update for existing customers. And it appears that when Portal took back the rights to the digital version of their game, they got the iOS dev account for the previous version as well. Which makes life so much easier for this sort of thing.

On a side note it’s no secret what my opinion on board games that rely/require apps to play. I don’t mind companion apps that are not integral to game play, but are optional and enhance the experience. It’s a subject that Ignacy Trzewiczek and I do not see eye to eye on. Why am I bringing it here? Well Ignacy or whoever at his company wrote the app release notes made my point for me!

Before this new version was released players of the app have been in limbo for about 2 years (I think that is correct, it’s definitely over a year). In that time we have seen os updates that have broken it. It has been unplayable. It’s nice for Portal to admit this, and prove one of my points.

I have to say this new version looks beautiful. I really think the game screen pops!

I do have a major criticism of this initial version. There is no in app help. It’d be handy for the iconography used in the Create Game menu option. It’s very much stumble around, trying things to work out what they are.

Plus I’m not too impressed with how to set up an online game via the Create Game screen and the Join the Game menu option.

To play with a friend I need to know their id first. I can’t just set up a private game and have them join. There is no friend list that I can see.

For me setting up an online game isn’t well thought out. Hopefully future updates will remedy this.

I look forward to playing this once more on a regular basis, and getting all the extra armies I had back.

An idea “borrowed” from an episode of Scandal

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

Ok this warning may be over dramatic but this post is here to record an idea down for a future session. I needed to capture it before I forgot all about it. So by reading this post, it may spoil an upcoming session for them.

I’ve been binge watching the tv series Scandal on Disney+. I’d seen it before but there are many things I like about it that warranted a second watch years after first watching it.

In Season 5 episode 21 there is a scene between the main character of the show Olivia Pope, her father Command (ex-head of a secret Government shadow organisation) and one of her love interests who also happens to be one of her fathers shadow agents, Jake Ballard.

Olivia is trying to help Jake escape from her fathers influence, and has turned up to take him away to “safety”. However a stand off develops with her father pointing a gun at Jake’s head. During this stand off Command says the following (I’m paraphrasing) “It may look like it’s my hand on the trigger, it may look like I’m pointing a gun at his head. But it’s an illusion. In fact it’s you whose doing it.”

That’s so cool.

Those words spoke to me. Inspired me.

I can use them, use this scene in a campaign.

The most obvious use would be in say a modern or scifi setting where there are guns. But I can see it working in a fantasy setting also with maybe a knife at the persons throat.

It could easily be the culmination of a rescue mission where the big bad replaces Command, the party replaces Olivia and the hostage replaces Jake.

I like how it adds a “final” twist to overcome for the party. It’s not an original twist. There are many examples of the kidnapper being cornered and holding the victim at gun point trying to save their own skin. There is a NCIS scene that comes to mind immediately for example.

But the word illusion also inspires. What if the person holding the gun/knife to the victim looks like one of the party using an illusion spell? Will it make them doubt who the real one is, mistrust the person, confuse?

How the party handles the situation will be interesting. I have no idea how it would play out, what the outcome will be. That’s something that’d be decided at the table at the time.

Turning Angrath into a legendary creature

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

In what seems an age now (and technically it was) I made an initial stab at bringing the MtG Planeswalker Angrath to D&D, the Forgotten Realms, and my campaign.

Time passes, DM’s grow, get more experienced, learn new tricks (yes this old dog is learning new tricks!)

Although the adventurers in my campaign have not met Angrath yet. They have come across his minions, and herald. And they have definitely incurred his wrath by attacking his pirates liar, and stealing a boat from his pirate fleet.

So a reckoning is on the books for the party sooner than later.

The encounter with Angrath most certainly is a boss fight.

For this post I thought I’d revisit Angrath and reimagine him as a legendary creature.

To do this reimagining I will be following the Sly Flourish template for improvising legendary monsters (I only did a none post about it a couple days back).

Let’s get started…

The initial monster stat block for Angrath will remain the same, which is the Minotaur stat block.

Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If the monster fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

Legendary Actions:

  • Misty Step
  • Melee attack

Hit Points: 152 (doubling the Minotaur HP – but this most likely will be adjusted at the time of the encounter to take into account the level of the party and how the encounter is going).

Tweak Damage: Angraths whip will do 15 slashing damage plus 10 fire damage. His warhammer will do 8 bludgeoning damage plus 10 fire damage.

Spells:

  • Fire shield
  • Shield
  • Scorching ray

Minions: naturally Angrath will not be alone when he brings his wrath onto the adventurers. There will be pirates supporting him. He will also be able to redirect damage to his minions.

I do like the idea of Angrath being a legendary creature. It seems more fitting for the boss of a pirate fleet, and his Planeswalker heritage. I’m also now of the opinion these spells he now has access to are more in keeping with the character.

So that’s Angrath as a legendary creature. How balanced or challenging he is is another thing. That will only be known once he is used in anger in a boss encounter.

But the process of making Angrath legendary was fairly quick and painless. Vraska next I suppose. But less pressure as the party are a while off from meeting her.

VtM: Rivals Toreador Pre-Constructed Deck

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Despite having written two posts yesterday, the second could easily have been scheduled for today, I’m back with another post today.

As we await the opening up of pre-orders for the second expansion for Rivals, The Wolf and The Rat (Gangrel & Nosferatu clans). I thought I’d start looking at the Core Set and the first expansion Blood & Alchemy (Tremere & Thin-bloods clans) in an adhoc series of posts.

These posts will initially look at the pre-constructed decks (as I play them), followed by posts looking at deck building.

I’m going to give a big disclaimer before I do though. I don’t have lots of game time playing Rivals. Heck so far I’ve played it twice! So I can’t be called an expert by any standards. What I will bring to the table when I look at the decks is my experience from playing MtG, Epic the Card game and Android Netrunner.

This inaugural post will be looking at the Toreador clan pre-constructed deck from the Core Set.

The image below is the official deck list for the Toreador deck.

You can pick up this deck list and others here

The rule book gives the following description for the Toreador deck.

Ideally in your starting hand you want one of the Unhosted Action – Ongoing cards, and an Attack card that increases your attack (such as Biting Comment, Seduction or Baseball Bat).

Your first turn you need to be attacking a City Deck Mortal in the Street and attaching it as a retainer to Lixue Chen. Plus playing the Unhosted Action. Unless your Unhosted Action is Beauty is a Beast then you need to play that first and use it’s ability to aid in the attack. Depending on the mortal being attacked you may not need to play an Attack card, and can save that for a later turn.

So let’s look at the cards.

Agenda/Haven/Leader

Agenda/Haven plus new player leader

Looking at the agenda, haven and leader the word that is on all three cards is retainers. This is telling me that this deck is the Rivals version of an MtG voltron deck. I want to be attacking City Deck Mortals in the Street and attaching them as retainers to the vampires in my Coterie. Not only do I get an extra agenda point, the vampire heals one blood plus the retainer buffs the vampire in some way also making them more powerful.

Faction Deck

I like that Bella Forte and Iris Lokken synergise so well with Search Engine. Being able to control the top card to get maximum benefit from these two is really powerful.

Having two vampires that do something with retainers is good. Whether it is stealing an opponents retainers with Liza Holt or getting an influence buff from them like Muhammad Zadeh.

There are two vampires that can block ranged attacks. The jury is still out on how good these are for me. My limited play hasn’t allowed me to fully appreciate these cards.

Muhammad and Iris get nice influence boosts to sway those scheme votes. Iris is great for trying to get your own scheme through. But Muhammad once buffed with retainers is great for voting on your own schemes or an opponents.

Library Deck

42.5% or 17 cards of the Library Deck are Attack cards, with 1 duel use Attack/Reaction card. That’s a pretty big signal to me that this deck should be attacking, whether it’s your rival or City Deck Mortals in the street. I like how there are cards to drain your rivals prestige, steal a retainer or get a buff from your own retainers.

12.5% or 6 cards of the Library Deck are reaction cards, not including the duel use card. Only Fleetness fits in with the retainer plan. The other is ok for it’s shields and absorbing damage.

7 cards or 17.5% cards are Schemes. Two do something with prestige. Although it sticks in my throat with the group hug cards where I’m helping everyone. My favourite of the three is Balance of Power as it can be used to weaken my rival. I suppose in a multiplayer game you could try and politicise them and strike a deal to play them.

With 22.5% or 9 cards being these ongoing Unhosted Actions. I like these as they fit in nicely with the overall game plan. I do like Search Engine, don’t under estimate being able to control that top card of the deck. Apart from its great synergy with the two vampires mentioned above. Just being able to filter what you draw next is really powerful.

There is a single title card making up 2.5% of the deck. It feeds into the influence plan for schemes. But not sure how good this card is.

Let me know what you thought of this post in the comments below.

Vampire Wednesday Morning

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One of the things I like about Renegade Games and what they are trying to do with Vampire the Masquerade: Rivals is establish a community for the game.

Vampire Wednesdays is their attempt at creating their version of Friday Night Magic. To support this they have been running a weekly live stream on twitch on Wednesdays. With the video being shared on YouTube days later.

Ideally because I don’t do twitch I’d love them to push the live stream to YouTube at the same time, or at least put the video up on YouTube within 24 hours. But I can only dream.

At the moment the only other player I know who likes the game is Diego. Luckily the day he is free to play is a Wednesday. Sadly due to timezones and availability we are playing many hours before the Vampire Wednesday live stream. So any fun formats, rule changes introduced for those joining in are missed. I suppose we could use them the following time we play.

This morning Diego and I met up to play a two player game of Rivals.

I played Toreador, whilst Diego played Malkavian. Once again these were the pre-built decks straight out of the core box with no modification.

We were still having to refer to the rulebook to look things up. Like conspiracies, we hadn’t played them before. But for our second game we were getting better!

I have to say I enjoyed playing Toreador.

My experience with the deck was far far different from Gavin last week. The cards were much much more kind to me. I had Search Engine and Influencer in my opening hand. Both Unhosted Actions. So they were both played for my first turn. A great set up turn. Influencer was great as it set up playing a scheme turn two to take a prestige from Diego.

Whilst Search Engine gave me the Rivals version of the scry mechanic in MtG. I love this card. Being able to basically control the top card of your deck with this deck is important. Several of the cards in the deck have you revealing the top card to get some kind of benefit, like extra attack or influence.

It’s also important with the Toreador deck to get a retainer early on to start buffing your vampires and gaining agenda points. Which I was able to do on my second turn. Getting a vagrant also allowed me to mitigate the S.A.D. damage at the end of my turn until a second one appeared in the street. So I was happy leaving it there to chip away at Diego’s Coterie.

Diego had a nice card that exhausted all my vampires so I couldn’t attack his vampire he was going to claim the Prince of the City with. Unlucky for Diego he never got to benefit from it as I claimed it off his vampire on my turn.

In the end I won by TKO or more correctly sending all his vampires to Torpor.

I enjoyed Rivals as a two player game. It was different to last weeks three player game. I like both player counts. But I can see how a deck needs to be built for either a two player or multiplayer game. Multiplayer your deck can be a bit slower to kick in, but in two player you need to be out of the starting block as quick as possible.

There wasn’t enough time to have a three player game with a friend of Diego’s that turned up mid game. So we had a couple of games of Perudo before I had to head back home.

I’m looking forward to our next Vampire Wednesday Morning.