Scythe Rise of Fenris Campaign Episodes 5 and 6

Game day, Rise of Fenris, Scythe

SPOILER ALERT! The following post contains spoilers for the Rise of Fenris campaign for Scythe. If you haven’t played the expansion and wish to avoid any spoilers you may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Ben messaged me saying he was not up to joining us today. I called him to check he was ok. But his life event is taking it out of him at the moment.

You know the drill by now. I get there early and set up.

Episode 5

I setup the changes for episode 5 which saw box D being placed on the Factory. An amazing bit of theatre. Then some influence tokens were placed on each tunnel and on each of the three land territories adjacent to the Factory. These would be worth -$1 for each one collected at the end of the game.

Our faction/player board match ups for episode 5 were as follows after randomly drawing the player boards. (I remembered to record them this session.)

  • Vesna & Voltan/Industrial (Cyan) – Jeff
  • Nordic Kingdoms/Militant (Blue) – Shane
  • Rusviet Union/Engineering (Red) – Me

We were allowed the Wind Gambit expansion again so airships were back on the map. This episode we went with the Backup Plan resolution tile. I’ve never played with this resolution tile. It looked interesting with its extra turn if the player triggering the end of the game does not have the highest score.

The two airship tiles drawn were Bombard and Reap. Reap was going to be especially useful for ramping up production.

My beloved Rusviet were having to use the alternative Township mech tile this game.

True to form I made a dash to the Factory, whilst the other two did their “going to complete achievements and get points thing”!

Getting to the Factory got me two influence tokens for my efforts. Aka -$2 at the end of the episode. Was it worth it?

However once there I got to open the mysterious box D.

Inside the box was an Annihilator mini that I had to fight. Victory would trigger the end of the game. Defeat, a major set back and humiliation.

I rolled the two dice.

Double 3.

I had a total combat score of 17.

The Annihilator had a base power of 3, plus the total of the top 3 cards from the combat deck. Well that’s what the expansion rule book said. However the complete rule book said it was the top 4. After a quick debate I went to the Scythe FAQ. It was indeed the top 4 cards. Bugger. There was a misprint in the expansion rule book.

Any card 4 or less and I win. I drew the fourth card, it was a 3. I had defeated the Annihilator and triggered the end of the game.

Sadly I hadn’t won.

So there was one more round. Which saw Shane steal the Factory from me and reduce my score even more. Jeff was the run away victor.

Episode 5 Final Scores

My reward for defeating the Annihilator was to get to play a new faction Fenris, lead by Rasputin.

Episode 6

After moving to another part of the community centre (there was a booking that evening, and they needed to setup where we were). We commenced with episode 6 considering the previous episode had been over so quickly.

Our faction/player board match ups for episode 6 were as follows after randomly drawing the player boards.

  • Vesna & Voltan/Innovative (Cyan) – Jeff
  • Nordic Kingdoms/Industrial (Blue) – Shane
  • Fenris/Agricultural (Orange) – Me

The Wind Gambit was still in play, and we decided to stay with the Backup Plan resolution tile. Our airship tiles for this episode were Negotiate and Toll.

There were no special rules this episode. It was to be just a “normal” game of Scythe!

It was so odd playing without the Rusviet faction ability. How do others do it?

The Annihilator mech has such a War of the Worlds Martian vibe.

I need a sound board app to play that ulah next episode.

No river walk needed with the Annihilator mech, it gets leap! Plus a really cool mech ability called Death Ray! ULAH!

Death Ray is sooooo cool. It allows you to play as many combat cards as you want in combat as long as they are all the same value. So amassing combat cards is a necessary thing to do. Which I did.

One drawback of Fenris is it starts with -$16! However Rasputin (the Fenris Commander) gets to place one influence token on the tile he moves to. Plus one more on an unoccupied tile. These are great fun as they mean -$1 to an opponent if they land on a tile with one on.

I did trigger the end of the game. And I won by a single point much to Jeff’s annoyance. That one point was the influence token he had to take! Plus there was extra salt in his fresh wounds because he might have won if he’d remembered to collect the oil resource at the start of his turns.

Episode 6 Final Scores

Afterwards players were given the chance to swap faction. I decided to stay with Rasputin and Fenris. It was a hard decision. Jeff decided to keep the “broken“ Vesna faction. But Shane couldn’t wait to abandon the Nordic faction, who let’s remember had fought tooth and nail for him in this campaign. Shane wanted to take my beloved Rusviet.

I’m so looking forward to the penultimate episode, episode 7.

D&D Grp 2 Session 4 Planning #3

D&D, D&D Grp2, miniatures, miniatures painting, RPG, session planning

Hey if you are part of the adventuring party and don’t heed the following warning. Just don’t blame me for any disappointment from knowing too much!

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.

This should be a very short post. A bit like the previous one really.

I actually had a moment of madness this morning and primed the new minis that arrived the other day. Plus also the four new minis I picked up last night from Colin at club night.

I now have four mummies. So super chuffed about that. Plus a mystery mini that inspired me when I was shown it.

I’m not sure what or who this humanoid is, but I think they will be the owner of the haunted house. Possessed probably and extremely dangerous with that meat cleaver(?).

The shadows I’ll finish first. They will get a dry brush finish similar to the one I did on the Alien figures to give them some highlights.

After that it’s a little research into how to paint mummies!

Told you this was short. Laters.

D&D Grp 2 Session 4 Planning #2

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

To whom it may concern, the following is for you. If you decide to ignore those words then so be it. But your enjoyment of the next D&D session is liable to be diminished. Even spoiled for want of a better word.

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.

The gap between session 3 and 4 has been increased to 4 weeks! Mainly due to a little confusion about when the next session will be.

However that’s given me time to do very little except order some miniatures! Which arrived today.

As you can see these were mentioned in the previous post for the haunted house idea. I’ve not been able to find any mummies, or ones I like. I already have zombies, and oozes. Not been able to find any giant bats or swarm of bats miniatures that are in stock or affordable! Etsy is so flippin expensive, especially the postage.

That’s one thing that doesn’t get mentioned about being a DM, the cost. Between printing out stuff at the library (cheaper than buying ink cartridges for my printer, that just acts as a scanner these days), miniatures, books, and various accessories. The cost mounts up.

Granted much of that stuff isn’t needed to play the game. However some of it does make life easier whilst running the game.

Cost is one of the factors in why I’m moving to using a battle map with the room drawn on it, odd bits of scatter terrain, and minis. It’s also quicker to setup during the session.

You hope that the players appreciate the efforts that go on behind the scenes to give them a fun time.

Now I have to get motivated into painting those minis. Especially the shadows.

May the 4th Be With You 2022 Edition!

Uncategorized

There is only one thing to wish you on this most geeky of days…

So how many Star Wars games have I played or own?

I own 7, have played 6.

Which the image below covers.

I no longer own Star Wars Destiny. It was a great ccg. I have great memories of playing it with my friend Dale. Sadly it was let down by FFG who massively underestimated initial demand, it was so hard to get hold of for months. Then it didn’t get much better on the supply side after that. Sets started to crash into each other. Not as bad as Dice Masters but still enough to put you off.

The two I haven’t played in the above are the Star Wars versions of Carcassonne and Risk. Everything else has seen the table at least once.

Do I have a favourite? It’s a close call between Rebellion (the Star Wars movies in a box) and Outer Rim. I know Nathan loves Outer Rim. So because of that I’ll give it the edge, and make it my favourite.

I also have the 30th Anniversary edition of the West End Games Star Wars RPG.

Like the majority of my RPG collection it hasn’t been played. Which isn’t surprising.

Anyway May the 4th be with you, and have a great day.

Two new arrivals

new arrivals

The roll/flip and write wing of my game collection has grown by two.

Saturday Jonathan generously gave me his copy of The Castles of Burgundy the Dice Game as a birthday present. Which was a very pleasant surprise. We had discussed it earlier (along with one or two other games), and I had expressed an interest in trying it.

Latest additions

Dungeons, Dice & Danger arrived unexpectedly today. I had only ordered it Friday from Amazon.de.

Why the German Amazon?

Apart from there wasn’t a copy to find in the UK online (at the time). What swung it was the edition on sale was multi-lingual with English being one of the languages. Plus it was cheaper than in the UK (if they had a copy) even with postage.

I think this was the second or third time I’ve used the German Amazon, for exactly the same reasons.

Naturally it’s not my fault I bought it. I blame Rodney of Watched It Played! and the how to play video he did for the game.

With the two arrivals the unplayed games challenge has grown once more. The grand total is now 68 games on that list. Of which 10 have been played. Leaving a rather easy 58 games to get to the table by the end of 2023.

Oh you wish to see the full list of roll/flip and writes in my collection.

Well here you go.

As you can see a third of them have not been played yet!

Ok enough rambling, have a great evening/day.

Birthday Gaming

Fenland Gamers, Game day

Yesterday I turned 54.

To celebrate that fact I organised a Saturday gaming session with some of my favourite people to game with, members of Fenland Gamers. Some of the finest people on this planet of ours. Although one or two of them have dubious opinions on roll and writes, and A Game of Thrones. Heck a couple are so deluded they think Barenpark is a game! But they are salt of the Earth folks that will exploit any weakness to get that all important victory.

We split into two groups of three to play games.

I taught and played Dune Imperium (plus Rise of Ix expansion) with Anthony and Shane.

You can see who played which character below.

Characters played in Dune Imperium

The scores below say it all really. With two rounds to spare Anthony claimed his inevitable victory. Which the seeds for were sown a turn earlier.

Until this point we were all roughly around the same point total. No one pulling away from the pack. It was looking like it would be a ten round game with no one getting ten points.

Then a level three combat card came out that gave the winner a victory point. Then the winner had the option to buy two more victory points using spice and solari.

Anthony won that combat and bought an extra victory point with solari. Which he also followed up by gaining a third victory point using an intrigue card. That was some power play!

The following round the prize for winning the combat was two more victory points. Which Shane and myself could do nothing to prevent Anthony from also winning.

Wow what an incredible play.

Dune Imperium Final Scores

Afterwards Shane, Anthony and Colin had to leave for other commitments. Leaving Jonathan, Julie and myself to play a new game Jonathan had just got, Long Shot the Dice Game.

Yes you read that right. Jonathan bought a roll and write. Well two actually. Whilst we were finishing off Dune Imperium. Jonathan and co were playing a London Underground themed one that he had bought at the same time as Long Shot.

Scenes from the birthday gaming

Long Shot is an enjoyable roll and write. It’s not the heaviest. I’d say it’s almost an entry level roll and write. The theme and lightness make it a great introduction to the genre. In fact I prefer this to Camel Cup (not a roll and write). Which has a similar theme.

Final score for Long Shot: The Dice Game

I had a great afternoon gaming, and a big thank you to those that made it so.

And finally over to Jonathan…

Photos taken by Jonathan

D&D Grp 2 Session 4 Planning #1

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

Let the following warning/disclaimer be said. Then be it on your head if you ignore it.

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.

We have broke the fortnightly session routine already. But that’s on me. Instead of D&D I’d arranged an open gaming session that coincides with the celebration of achieving a 54th year on this Earth. So we will be having our next session the following weekend. A three week gap.

The start of the session will see the party waking up to a note from Adel sending them off on a hunt for another relic.

I knew I had some parchment images from a patreon I had backed a while back. Luckily I had them on my iCloud and was able to find them.

Below you will see my initial version of the note to check I have the look and feel right. I used the Dreaming Outloud Script Pro font within MS Word on the iPad to give me that hand written feel to the note.

Initial test of note for session

Naturally I’ll share on here the final note with all the plot hooks for the session once it’s completed.

As for what the party will be doing in the session I have the germ of an idea.

Obviously I’m going to be running with the overall theme based around Warehouse 13/Friday the 13th the series/Relics & Rarities/The Librarians.

However they still need that relic/artefact of the week to go retrieve.

But that could get boring/repetitive so I plan to break up that formula with the Stargate SG-1/Time Tunnel inspired style session with the party visiting another plane via the arches in the city. I might also throw in the odd Star Trek Deep Space 9/Babylon 5 style alien visitor to the City of Arches plot line.

I have the really inspiring tables from the Lazy DM Companion Hunt for the Relic page, and the City of Arches adventure generator pages, to help generate ideas for the session. The tables Sly Flourish provides generate some really great names for items. I’ve used them for naming the magic items the players have received already.

Over the last couple of days I’ve been mulling over setting the session in a haunted house. A ghost might be too difficult for the group to take on but shadows aren’t (must rewatch the dungeon dudes to see what they have to say about them). Plus I can throw in mummies, werewolves, the odd giant bat, have oozes oozing out of the walls. You get the idea.

I might after this artefact has been retrieved start to drop hints about a big bad. There needs to be that big bad. But I have “time” to think about that.

Now the red dragon wyrmling, who I named Littleflight, may or may not have something to do with that big bad. I need to sleep on this idea.

Anyway that’s where I am currently on my planning.

Flashback to April 2016

by the numbers, flashback, gaming stats, stats

It’s getting close to the end of the month and time once again to look back to days of old and see what I was playing way back when.

My Top 9 Played Games In April 2016

So it looks like we were still working our way through the Pandemic Legacy Season 1 campaign.

I’ve not played any Fluxx game in years. They are fun. Might have to dig one out and get it to the table. Mustn’t forget the house rule that if the game hasn’t ended within 30 mins to stop playing. Else it will go on forever.

I miss Android Netrunner. It is a great game, just oozing theme. Shame it joined that long list of dead games (yes I know fans are doing new stuff for it).

Not sure when I last played a physical copy of Star Realms. All my game play is with the digital version. But that won’t stop me backing this years Kickstarter for it!

Ok here are the months gaming stats.

Stats Insights For April 2016

Here’s that complete list of everything I played in April 2016.

Complete list of games played in April 2016

See you in next months flashback.

Scythe Rise of Fenris Campaign Episode 4

Game day, Rise of Fenris, Scythe

Behind The Scenes or BTS – 4/26/22 aka Alien Day: Why this post is only now appearing. This post has been written over several days. I started it Sunday. However I’ve been a bit tired or as I like to put it “bloody knackered”. So I’ve been writing a little bit of it each day before tiredness kicked in.

Look if you want to ruin the surprises that await you as you play the Scythe Rise of Fenris expansion then ignore the following warning. Otherwise please pay heed to it.

SPOILER ALERT! The following post contains spoilers for the Rise of Fenris campaign for Scythe. If you haven’t played the expansion and wish to avoid any spoilers you may want to avoid this post and join me in a future one.

Yesterday it was time to get Scythe and the Rise of Fenris expansion back to the table to play the next episode in the campaign.

First thing I did was to call Ben and see if he was well enough to join us. We left it that he’d call me at around 11:30am and let me know if he wasn’t.

I grabbed my bag with “everything” in and left for the Community Centre. As I was picking up the bag I distinctly remembered thinking to myself how nice it was to be able to just pick up a single bag and go. Knowing everything was in that bag.

Sadly that wasn’t entirely true.

It wasn’t until I got to the Community Centre, got out the car, took out the bag, and started walking from the car to the Community Centre, that I realised I’d left the neoprene playmat at home!

No worries we could use the regular board. Which changed to we will use the big board set up.

Whilst setting up Ben arrived.

This episode allowed the Wind Gambit expansion to be used. So naturally we were going to play with the airships. We were also allowed to use either the Doomsday Clock or Backup Plan resolution tiles. Of course we went with the Doomsday Clock. I’d played using that before (it’s the only resolution tile I’ve played with so far, but then again it’s only the second time I’ve played with them) and really enjoyed it. I really do like how the focus changes. It’s much more focused and pressured.

I got Ben to draw the two airship tiles, and we ended up with Toll and Hero. Ben also drew the structure bonus for this episode (see below).

We also got to open the little box marked B. Inside eight little orange meeples! These were Fenris agents. Two went on the Factory tile, and each of the six tiles with a tunnel on them also got a single Fenris agent.

By the time setup was finished, which included leaving the factory cards not drawn for the game to one side for Jeff to finish his Vesna faction setup once he arrived. We still had a little time left before the others were due to arrive.

With my setup bonuses and purchasing the perk for 2 more popularity my starting popularity for this episode was 6.

Our goals for episode 4 were to subdue the Fenris agents, and win the game (in 20 turns).

If there is one flaw I have in this campaign it’s going for the shiny new things like influence tokens, or as in this episode Fenris agents over trying to get objectives completed.

I did manage to get five of them, and there was that alluring promise of unimaginable riches at the end of the episode. Riches that translated to setup bonuses. Which felt a little disappointing when it was revealed at the end of the episode. Although I know that at the start of the next episode I will appreciate their benefit.

One of my tactics this game was a land grab trying to be in control of as many tiles as possible. I was able to utilise my airship as a way to lockdown the factory tile under my control. If you remember we had Toll as one of the airship tiles. Which meant to move through or into a space with an airship you had to pay a toll.

I only managed to get three objectives completed this episode before the Doomsday Clock ran out. So far out of the four episodes played the only objective I haven’t completed is the recruit one. So I need to complete that one next episode to complete a line across the Triumph Track. That’s $25 in the final episodes end scoring.

Jeff romped home with the victory and more than enough cash to buy two of the newly unlocked mech mods.

Shane also was able to purchase one. Whilst Ben and myself could look in the shop window but not buy anything. Maybe next episode.

I’m looking forward to our next game in 3 weeks time and the surprises it brings.