Wingspan – 100 point barrier broken!

Fenland Gamers, game night, online play

A bit of a sensational post title, many many other players have achieved this. But this is a first for our group.

But before I go into how that was achieved I just want to sing the praises of one of the Wingspan apps features that I really like. That feature is the Preserve Archive.

When you finish playing a game before returning to the main menu you are given the option of saving that game to the reserve. I’ve been doing that for all the games I have played so far (I only play Wingspan against my friends online). So it’s like keeping a running record of those games, which I really must turn into data that can be analysed and graphs drawn (wish there was an easy way to get to this data). But it really is cool being able to go back and look at the detail of everyone’s final board state.

Yesterday I got to play three games of Wingspan.

The first game of the day was a three player game with Jonathan plus an AI opponent during the afternoon.

For some reason the Switch version of the app decided to play up by crashing. And then once back up and online, deciding to play the background music so it sounded corrupted! Even quitting and go back in didn’t seem to fix it. But I soldiered on through this adversity to tie the game with the AI. Which was given the win on some bs tie breaker.

The second game of the day was later in the evening and saw Jeff joining in to make it a four player game. Having done absolutely nothing between games to rectify the earlier sound issue, it was now fine!

It wasn’t until the later stages of the game that I decided to look at the board states of the others. I was horrified to see Jonathan had both Ravens out. But he was struggling for some reason (He’ll hopefully put his experience and reasons in the comments about this). I still thought the game would go to Jonathan.

So I was pleasantly surprised that I scored more points than him. And I’ve only just noticed I scored the exact same score as I had in the earlier game. Alas thus was not good enough to beat Jeff, who romped home to his first win. I suspect he’s been practicing.

We started our third and final game, after all our first game had taken about an hour. There was time for another. Or so we thought. Jonathan noticed it first. But this third game was taking an age. Despite taking our turns almost instantly (there was no AP going on), the little egg timer would appear and be there for minutes (never timed sadly). Something was up. But we were committed now. It was well over two hours for the game to finish.

The game did finish though, and when the dust settled, scores tallied. Not only had Jeff hit the 100 point barrier, I had smashed through it and got the win with 102 points. Just like buses if I was to use an old tired cliche.

As you can see below I needed to set up a card draw engine to get cards into hand to fully utilise my bonus. So I took the early decision to forget the end of round objectives and try and get as many birds in hand as possible. I certainly got a lot of value out of tucking cards, such as draw another card, gain an egg, discard a wheat to tuck two, gain a wheat. Because I was drawing so many cards I was able to cherry pick cards that fitted in with my plan and deny the others.

This morning I realised I should have scored 103 points, but failed to tuck and draw one more time on my last turn! I was too set on making sure that I had 8 cards in hand to max out my bonus, forgetting the last tuck replaced itself. That slip could have cost me the game. Many a game has been won by a single point.

I did miss out on 2 points from the final turn. Basically if I had the nest space I could have gained a further 2 eggs. But I was 100% full, no room at the inn. So not an option.

Below are the final board states for both Jeff and Jonathan.

As you can see Jonathan was one bird from completing a self set achievement of completely filling his reserve. The next achievement for us all to try and beat.

I’ll leave you with a parting gift of Wingspan tallying up the final scores. While watching this 30 second clip (the Switch is great at creating these) trying and imagine being Jeff and thinking you’d got this. Then it dawning on you that I had a lot of tucked birds as they got added to my score, and you had just been beaten. I can still here the echoes of Jeff screaming “noooooooooooooo!”

Back to other stuff in the next post.

Dwarven Gate Progress

D&D, miniatures, RPG

I thought I’d just share the progress on printing the dwarven gate(s) that Duncan is doing for me.

The first gate has finished printing. Duncan sent me some photos of it assembled, that I’m sharing below with you.

Ok it is being held together by blutac. So once I glue/fix them into position it will fit more cleanly. This was only done to give me an idea of how they will look, and progress.

I have to say it looks pretty amazing. I really think when these get out on the table they have a wow factor.

Duncan has nearly finished the second gate. With all the hiccups worked out in printing them he’s raced through the separate parts that make up the gate.

Can’t wait to to get my grubby mitts on them, and more importantly use them in a game of D&D.

Last Days: A Triffid Apocalypse!

Last Days, miniatures

The other day I wrote about how I was excited to be getting some 28mm triffid miniatures printed, and that I’d be using the Last Days: Evolution rules from issue 2 of Blaster with them in a Last Days game.

However to do this I need to come up with the stats for the triffids (I need to fill in the template below). Considering the miniature design is that of the 1980’s BBC adaptation of Day of the Triffids. I want the stats to reflect that as much as possible. Although I will use aspects of the other portrayals of triffids that make sense or fill in any gaps.

So off to the internet to research triffids!

Well first I clicked on the link Duncan had shared with me (The Prop Gallery – link at bottom of post). The link goes to a page about the BBC 1981 triffid prop. Apart from the cool photos that will come in handy when it comes time to paint the triffid miniatures, the relevant bit of info for me was the height of the triffids made, “Standing over nine feet in height“. The Wikipedia page adds to this with information from the novel, “Adult triffids are typically 7 feet (2.1 m) in height. European triffids never exceed 8 feet (2.4 m), but in tropical climates they can reach 10 feet (3.0 m).” and from a sequel story, “a small number of North American triffids reach 60 feet (18 m) in height.”

I was going to have the triffids move slower than a zombie until I came across the following snippet, “Nevertheless, ungainly though it looked, it was contriving to cover the ground at something like an average walking pace.” (Wikipedia)

I got an idea for how tough a triffid are from this “blasting with a shotgun or decapitating with a triffid gun (which fires steel boomerangs called ‘bolts’). Bullets are less effective since a triffid can absorb much damage before dying.” (RGtDotT)

So I think if the attacker uses a shotgun or machete then they can “decapitate” the triffid and kill it.

Let’s look at the triffids weapon, which is its stinger. “a stinger which, when fully extended, can measure 10 feet (3.0 m) in length. When attacking, a triffid will lash the sting at its target, primarily aiming for its prey’s face or head, with considerable speed and force. Contact with bare skin can kill a person instantly.” (Wikipedia)

“Have you noticed that when they attack they always go for the unprotected parts? Almost always the head—but sometimes the hands. And another thing: if you look at the statistics of casualties, just take notice of the proportion that has been stung across the eyes and blinded.” (Wikipedia)

Over on the Readers Guide there was this interesting little snippet that I want to try and use if possible. “… but the range can be increased by 1.2–1.5 meters/4–5 feet if it sways forward beforehand.” (RGtDotT)

So how does this translate into stats and all those key words for behaviour and traits?

For the Action Points (AP) I am giving the triffids the same as a basic zombie. This should give it the movement of a walking person. Triffids can’t run. Naturally for Close Quarter Combat (CQC) this just isn’t applicable. Triffids are a ranged attack only. Although technically not a fire arm, the stinger is a ranged weapon. The Fire Arms (FA) stat needs to give the triffid a reasonable chance of hitting it’s target. So I am going to take that from the stat block of a survivor. As defined in the core rule book (page 12) I don’t see the Strength (S) stat being relevant to a triffid. For the time being I’m not sure that Endurance (E) is applicable either. But that may need revisiting. For Damage Capacity (C) I’m making the triffids tougher than humans, but this is mainly for use when being attacked by a weapon that is not a shotgun or machete. I think a triffids might be deadlier than a zombie, but not as scary. So I’m initially giving them a slightly lower “Horror” value. But once gain this may need revisiting. Although a triffid displays signs of intelligence, I am giving them a zero value for this just like a zombie.

I can see “stalking” or “shambling” being suitable here for the Behaviour. But my gut tells me to go “shambling”, but noting that a triffid can’t use the climb action.

What traits to give the triffid? I think “massive” for sure. Triffids can’t enter buildings, and they are a lot bigger than humans. They are easier to hit. For “frequency” I’m going to mimic that of the regular zombie spawning. The other one I am adding is “You’ve Got To Shoot Them In The Head!” if a shotgun or machete is being used.

Next I have to spec out the stinger. I think if a target is under a foot away from the triffid then it can’t hit the target. I’m not sure how to implement the sway yet to extend the range. I think it will be a brand new special rule. Damage is interesting, and initially I’m making it the equivalent of a gun. Rate of Fire (RoF) is easy the triffid can only use it’s stinger once per round to attack. Knock back isn’t applicable, nor is reload.

For the special rules, the stinger is definitely silent. However I think that there will need to be a new special rule to handle the sway to increase the range of the stinger by up to 5 feet. I also think there need to be special rules to cater for the triffid targeting the head and also whether it hit bare skin. This later point is more important for a campaign and deciding if the character becomes blind. The head shot will be a kill shot. But need to think about this. I think maybe 1d6, with a 6 being the headshot.

Please note: These stats have not been play tested. I repeat have not been play tested. They are my initial thoughts, and a work in progress. They are likely to change once I get a chance to play test them.

I hope you find these stats useful. Let me know what you think. Did you use them? How did you get on with them? What did you tweak? I really would appreciate any feedback you have.

Taking this further and adding evolutions is a possibility. The sequel mentions “Aquatic triffids” (Wikipedia), along with using the different sized varieties of land based triffids, particularly the 60 foot American variety one. Maybe use the different appearances of the triffid from the other adaptations and the original book. But I’ll leave that for others to investigate, and spec out, for now.

To do:

  • Play test this!
  • Special rules for sway, head shot and bare skin.
  • Come up with campaign additions to cover a character becoming blind if they survived an attack and got hit on bare skin.

References used:

Aggressive City Building!

Fenland Gamers, game night, online play

Last night saw 5 members of Fenland Gamers meet up virtually to play games.

The clubs discord server was used to host the evening, and made use of its text chat channel and an audio chat channel.

This side of the evening seemed to work really well, especially the audio chat side. Despite a dip in audio quality from time to time, I enjoyed our banter during the game.

Our first game of Carcassonne was just the base game, no expansions. Both games that we played used the following options:

I do like the dead and remaining tiles features. It’s so handy seeing what tiles are left. It offers hope that you might draw the tile you want, or snuff out that hope knowing you will never complete that town. Dead tiles I like as they act as a constant reminder you or your opponent will never complete that town or abbey.

I got screwed by Oli early on with him tying up two of my meeples for the whole of the game. I was playing at a big disadvantage then. So I was chuffed I drew last place. It was the best I could hope for.

Gavin on the other hand I think was a bit shell shocked with the aggressive play and the whole stealing towns off of players. And I can see how it may be seen a bit cutthroat. But that’s how I’ve always played the game, whether against others or an AI.

Jonathan was able to claw out a victory for the first game.

Our second and final game of the evening used the following expansions:

Naturally with the expansions being used the game took longer to play. But I do enjoy playing Carcassonne with them. It’s why I have them for the physical game as well. I didn’t include the Princess and Dragon expansion because I knew Jonathan wasn’t a fan of it. Although with this many players it would become so tactical, and yes add even more playing time.

There were some great battles going on in this game for control of towns and fields. One of those battles involved Jonathan, Oli, and Gavin for control of a field. It looked right up to the last two or three tiles that Jonathan had it. But Oli managed to steal it from him and the win.

We had a great time playing a classic board game using a really great digital version.

Now to organise the next virtual game night.

Return to Ravenloft this May

D&D, news, RPG

Tuesday WotC announced their next book release for D&D 5e, “Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft”.

This new tome is a campaign source book that will allow DM’s to craft horror themed campaigns for D&D in the expanded Domains of Dread (the first time in 5e).

Naturally there will be new stuff for players such as backgrounds, character lineages, and subclasses, themed for a horror setting. Plus dark gifts, trinkets, creatures and a brand new adventure.

I have to say that my initial impressions of the cover art were not favourable. It didn’t excite or grab me at all. Maybe the FLGS exclusive alt art cover (below right) will look better in the flesh.

With this release the recent on going theme for D&D of producing horror themed titles continues. It started with Rime of the Frostmaiden, and was followed up with the Curse of Strahd Revamped release. Ok Candlekeep Mysteries (out next on 16th March) does break from that, but hey who knows there might be a horror one shot in its pages!

I’m excited for this release (although I’d have been more excited about it being Dragonlance). Horror in D&D interests me. And I’m interested in what advice the folks at WotC will be sharing within the pages on running and creating horror campaigns.

“Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft” drops into your FLGS on 18th May.

You can read the full product description on the WotC D&D website HERE.

Some 3D printing currently in progress

D&D, Last Days, RPG

My friend Duncan is printing off a couple of Dwarven doors for me on his 3D printer. And I thought I’d share with you the latest progress photo he sent me.

This is looking pretty awesome. And will look amazing on the tabletop.

Duncan has also been printing other things for me too.

Despite having not played a game of it yet, Duncan is printing some new threats to use with Last Days, triffids.

Wait, Last Days is all about zombies you say.

And yes it is. However in issue 2 of Blaster, Ash Barker, the games creator, published rules called Last Days Evolution. These rule additions allow you to retheme Last Days. So instead of zombies you could have for example triffids, or xenomorphs.

Luckily there is a 3D modeller who did a set of triffid models for printing. Which I discovered by accident looking for 3D models for something else. When I saw them I instantly thought of the new rules. I could instead of playing The Walking Dead/Dawn of the Dead, now I can be playing Day of the Triffids.

I have fond memories of the BBC adaptation of the book from the 80’s. Which would account for why it’s sitting in my Amazon Prime library. Wasn’t too keen on the new version they did a few years back.

So I’m pretty excited about getting some triffids (which may or may not turn up as a threat in our D&D campaign) and using them in a game.

As I was writing this post the 3D modeller gave an update that they have updated their cylon models (see below).

They look pretty cool. I do prefer the classic 80’s tv show cylon to the reboot version. Although I do love the reboot.

And yes, Last Days and the Evolution rules could be used so that these fine cylons could be the threat.

The scenario would be the cylons have located Earth and launched an invasion, killing any humans they come across. Which would allow me to reuse the the stuff I have put together already to use with Last Days.

But it doesn’t stop there.

Galeforce 9 sell an Aliens board game called Aliens: Another Glorious Day in the Corp. Luckily there is no need to buy the game and it’s expansions to get the miniatures. GF9 kindly sell those separately. So along with using them for the Alien RPG (probably why they decided to do this), yep using the Last Days Evolution rules all of a sudden it gets an Aliens reskinning!

This two could use my current scatter terrain because in the classic Dark Horse Alien comic the xenomorphs did get to Earth.

However I need to start getting some reusable sci-fi terrain together for various RPGs which could be used with cylons and also aliens. But that project is for another day.

I love that Last Days is flexible enough now to cater for most people’s needs. It can be a 1v1 skirmish game, co-op, or even solo. It can be a campaign or one-off. It can be any theme you want now. Plus the Timelines rules from issue 1 of Blaster allow you to play in either modern or the Wild West! Although the article reads like there should be other time period examples as well, or that it was written as another rule book for the game.

I can’t wait to get this to the table.

My Recent Top 5 Boardgame App Plays

apps, iOS, nintendo, online play, switch

Below are the top 5 played app versions of board games for the last 3 weeks.


The first place will always be Star Realms. Having now played over 9700 games now, I’m still loving the game. Regular expansions help keep it fresh. And at any given time usually have 5 or 6 games on the go with friends.

Those that know me on other places other than this blog will not be surprised with Wingspan coming in second. I have been sharing the outcomes of games with Jonathan, and now our games include Jeff as well, on those platforms.

Speaking of Wingspan, last nights 4 player game (the fourth player being an AI) saw me win in style and just miss out on hitting the 100 point barrier.

Epic came in third because I’m currently only playing with one person, and those games are dark drafts. Which take longer to play taking into account the draft stage has to be done first before a game can start. Plus we are playing across time zones.

Naturally the last two positions are taken up by the two games we played last week during the virtual game night.

What are your top 5 played board game apps?

Planning an online RPG!!!!!

RPG

One thing that I have missed a lot in this year long pandemic is gaming with my friends. Particularly I have missed our D&D sessions. I can’t wait to get back to our campaign.

“But wait Darren, you can play D&D (or any other RPG) online using various online tools like roll20, discord, zoom etc.” I hear you all shout at the screen and me.

And you are totally one hundred percent correct. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of RPG games of one type or the other being played online. Let alone all those that also stream their games live on the internet.

However playing an RPG online doesn’t appeal to me. There is something about it that just doesn’t grab me with enthusiasm. I know my home setup isn’t geared to running the likes of roll20. Using owlbear.rodeo and discord (although I can’t drag and drop images into discord on iOS) is an option. But still I’m not inspired. RPGs are something a group of friends gather round a table for. I know I’m having a hard time articulating my objections to playing an RPG online.

Then the unexpected happens. I get tempted to run an RPG online! What changed?

I think it was Wednesday when I saw a tweet about someone playing a RPG online where no one is allowed to talk, they have to communicate via text messaging or a group chat of some kind. The person tweeting really enjoyed their experience. That RPG was called Alice is Missing.

So I googled the game. Saw that it was around £15 to buy online. Which takes it into worth taking a punt and trying it territory. Sadly it was out of stock everywhere. So I made a post on BGT&C.co.uk on Facebook asking if anyone had a copy they no longer wanted. One of the early replies pointed out I could get a digital copy of DriveThruRPG for £11. Result.

Basically you are buying a print and play version of the game. That is if you want to play it gathered in the same room. However the thing about this that attracted me to it is this is should be very suitable for playing remotely.

“What did we just hear you right there? You are thinking of playing a RPG online?”

Yes you heard correctly.

Alice is Missing has me planning to run a RPG online.

Luckily in the rules there are some tips/pointers to doing this. Plus on the website there are links to roll20 and to a discord template for setting up a discord server to play the game. Plus the publisher provides some resources to download to use to play the game online but not everything that is needed. And that is the annoying part. It’s like the publisher has done half a job. Why they couldn’t have put everything you need to run the game online into the DriveThruRPG files I don’t know. It would have made sense, plus they would have got money for them as well. Heck I wouldn’t have minded if they even added on a couple more pounds to do this.

So now before I even think of sounding out potential players from our gaming group (which will include giving a content warning as it can potentially include some subject matters that some may find upsetting) I need to extract digital copies of the files/cards that are not included in that handy download the publisher provided from the print and play side of the package bought from DriveThruRPG.

Now apparently I saw mention online that there is an official discord server for discussing the game, and they have bots to aid playing the game plus the “missing” files you can download. However when I press the link on the official publisher site for the game it just takes me to the discord server I setup using their template! I reached out to the publisher through twitter but have had no response to date.

So I am in a little holding pattern while I get over these little humps before I hopefully get to play this RPG online.

A virtual game night

apps, Fenland Gamers, game night, love letter, online play

Last night we had a virtual game night!

I know shocked me as well. It shouldn’t have but it did. Especially considering I’m the one that suggested it in the first place!

Last week I posted on our clubs discord server asking if anyone was up for a virtual gaming session, giving a day and time for when it would happen. But there was no response. So I assumed there was no interest.

Fortunately I happened to be on the clubs discord server at the right time last night as two others turned up to play!

After some brief chatting, exchanging lists of board game apps that each of us owned, and finding some games that we all had, we settled on our first game to play.

That first game was Tokaido. I like the game a lot. It’s a beautiful, peaceful, game. Somehow Jonathan won the first game, whilst Oli won the second game.

Our second game of the evening was Love Letter.

I wasn’t sure about this app. I love the game. But could this app capture the whole play experience?

I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t a bad attempt at capturing the game.

Mechanically the app is spot on. It’s Love Letter. The interface took a little getting used to. But that was a quick learning curve. I liked that when setting up an online game you can adjust the number of points needed to win. And you can switch on or off the stars that appear on a card telling you how many of that card you have seen.

I liked the banter it has where you can cause a speech bubble to appear that hurls an insult or praise. And we did that from time to time through out our game. But we were also exchanging banter via our discord chat channel. That helped a lot in the attempt to capture the tabletop experience. Maybe if we used voice it might have helped to get even closer to the tabletop experience.

For the record I had a comfortable victory.

After that win, we called it a day for the virtual games evening. It was a fun time. I’ll have to suggest doing another soon.

A couple of days ago playing Wingspan with Jonathan we hit a first for me in the game. We achieved something that I had not done in the few games I’ve played of Wingspan both physical or digital.

Firstly we drew for first place on all of the end of round objectives.

Secondly, same game, Jonathan and I drew on points after the end of game scoring had been completed.

The app gave Jonathan the win on a tie breaker which was who had the most resources left. He had 1, I had none. Robbed. It should have been left at a draw.

That contested win means Jonathan has the advantage with our current game score line being 3-4 to Jonathan.

From the vaults!

Blast from the past, D&D, Judge Dredd, miniatures, RPG

Chance is a funny ol’ thing.

It was by chance that I stumbled across some old miniatures in the bottom of a cardboard box, that I had totally forgotten I owned.

These miniatures are over 30 years old now! We are talking circa 1988-89. That was a period of my life that had more than its share of life changing events.

I really don’t know how I ended up with a painted set of Dark Judges. I must of had them for playing the Judge Dredd RPG. But I never did get round to playing it.

I most definitely can’t tell you for sure who painted them either. I remember my good friend Chris Thompson did some painting for me. I’m pretty sure he did the minotaur below. And most likely he did the others too. The one thing we can be sure of is I didn’t paint them.

But I’m not complaining. How ever these came into my possession back then they will be perfect to use with the Judge Dredd and Worlds of 2000 A.D. RPG now (assuming I can get people to play that is, or will it be like the original RPG for me?) At some point in the next couple of years EN Publishing will be making the Dark Judges supplement. I can’t wait for that to be released. These will be perfect.

The minotaur is for Bloodbowl, and that would be first edition Bloodbowl. Naturally I don’t play Bloodbowl now a days or since I first owned this miniature back in the day. However I think I’ve just got my Angrath miniature for my D&D campaign!

I have no idea what so ever why I ever got these two ninja miniatures. They do seem a tad on the big side. But I’m sure I’ll find a use for them.

Finally the two unpainted miniatures are Gandalf and Legolas from LoTR. If memory serves me right they were part of a set that made up the fellowship of the ring. Where the others are I have no idea. Unlike the ninjas these two figures seem on the small side!

I think these bits of my gaming history from when I was studying in Brighton bring back some fond memories from that time. Memories that often get over shadowed by the more life changing ones that were happening at the time.

Back then I played MERP on a Wednesday afternoon, as the hobbit Dram. It was the role playing society that taught me the secret to making alcoholic jelly, and introduced me to LARPing. Good times. Care free times. Maybe that’s why I’ve backed Free Leagues The One Ring 2nd edition. It’s a different system to MERP but maybe I’m hoping that it will recapture those good times once again.