Month: March 2013

JUPITER’S COCK! It’s a Drax Report

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We got to play Spartacus the boardgame last night.  It’s a cracker! NOTHING to do with the fact that I beat Drax repeatedly and went onto win.  It’s just a very nice game.  I feel it incumbent on me to make a joke about the above card so here goes, “There is nothing more reassuring than having jupiter’s cock in your hand”. So that dealt with onto the report

The Game

Spartacus is  a game of bloody combat, behind the scenes manipulation and all around cock blockery.  You hire gladiators and slaves, organise games and try and gain prestige from your actions while keeping others down.  Balance the books by betting on matches (you can’t bet against yourself btw), hiring slaves and playing intrigue cards.  Gain new equipment, slaves and fighters in the markets.  take opponents down a peg or five with intrigue and reaction cards. Fight epic matches and become the people champion.  All good Thursday night stuff.

 

The Good

The setting is excellent, it really captures the feel of the TV series (I’m told), it’s not a set of mechanics with a theme bolted on

The Gameplay is fast and direct, none of your solo play rubbish here, it’s direct and nasty, lot of options for cock blockery (pardon the pun)

The pieces are nice and solid (not up to the standard of fantasy flight but more than acceptable), plus there’s some nice pics of the slave girls

Gameplay is fast and straightforward, it’s great fun getting into the arena, just as much fun watching and betting and downright awesome watching an opponents gladiators being crushed.

Lot of routes to win

The Bad

It really needs the full four to play in a balanced way.  It’s possible for one person to get ahead with a wrecking ball of a gladiator and dominate the games HOWEVER that may have been down to our lack of imagination when it came to screwing up other players

Would have liked to see a bit higher quality printing, it’s all fine but could have been better

Session

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128671/spartacus-a-game-of-blood-treachery

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It started easy enough with a few starter gladiators and early on I won a bid for a trident (weapon) which proved devastating throughout since I could attack from a bit of range and dance away from counter attacks.  Drax went for a javelin which unfortunately for him did very little.  Mid-game I had a decent hero who was causing mayhem with his trident and Armour and beating all others in combat.  Then as is the way the others turned on me and started to hit me where it hurt my purse.  With no slaves I had to release a few of my fighters from their contracts and only some lucky betting kept my house ticking over.  Drax on the other hand with his large stock of slaves and nice abilities was coining it.  Boris slipped the clutch late game and only my jupiters cock (think humiliation card from lunch money) stopped him from winning along with SHOCK co-operation from Drax who’s normal rule of the enemy of my enemy is my friend unless it’s Vic was relaxed for a round.

All came down to a final match where I picked up a javelin and Drax and my champion entered the arena.  Early on drax landed a few choice blows and my guy was reeling.  It was looking like I would be leaving feet first when a chance throw from my Javelin wounded his hero and turned the tide a little.  After that I did better and managed to beat him to a standstill winning the game

Make no mistake this is a GREAT GAME.  it’s simple and fun, I’d rate it up there with Pirates cove or above, simple, fun and very enjoyable

An expansion is due out soon which will make it even better

I can’t wait

Huzzah!

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Thur Night Gaming – Being a Drax Report – Wounded Knee Special

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It was a dark and stormy night and a few brave souls ventured out amid the flying debris to lock in battle.  We started with a ‘quick’ game of Dominion while we waited for everyone to arrive but this quickly degenerated into a ‘long’ game of Dominion and onto (for me anyway) a ‘terrible’ game of dominion.  I’ve since considered burning spy, thief and militia as the time sink cards they really are.  Boris won it with Brian close behind and me nowhere to be seen

Next up with the real meat and potatoes.  I’ve had a hankering to play CONAN the strategy boardgame for a long time

http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/27848/age-of-conan-the-strategy-board-game

BY pure concidence the same bunch of players were assembled last night that attempted the game last time.  Now, Conan is a complex game, once you get into the swing of it it’s fine but it’s standard Fantasy Flight, lots of tokens, lovely artwork and a solid game.  I’d be lying to say interest was low after the last attempt but we set to and with the conan soundtrack in the background we all attempted to wear the jewelled crown of aquelonia upon a troubled brow. If you haven’t seen the game it’s a bit different, it’s a bit like warrior knights with a few twists. Conan features but he’s a force of nature that you nudge in a certain direction rather than directly control.  As the game continued it become more and more competitive and as we got to the half way mark it was looking like everyone was onboard for the long haul and due to the complex rules it WAS a long enough haul.

I don’t recommend attempting this game without someone to guide you and looking up half a dozen tutorials on youtube.  It’s a hard game to get to grips with.  Even with a good lash of it last time we struggled with some parts of it using the age old technique of we’ll figure that bit out later.

All in all this is an excellent game.  There’s a good bit to it and a lot of ways to win. I’m eager to have another lash of it having figured out all the rules.  Once you get into the swing of it, it can tip along at a nice pace.  Nice level of player interaction and back stabbery.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating and everyone stayed the course so we didn’t finish until 2am and the winner was a little in question, I reckon it was Borys, he reckonded it was me but no-one had a bad time…. Except maybe Brian On…..

There are three areas you can score points for  Mastery of  Treasure, Women and Monsters….

In the third age you can attempt to steal a march and end the game by getting Conan to your home kingdom and crowning him king of your realm.  It’s risky enough.  Basically you declare which area you claim mastery of and show your points tokens you’ve gained through the game, if you’re highest in that area you win.  So effectively Brian invited Conan to his kingdom and claimed to have the highest rating in Women in the whole world.  12 in this case, way higher than Bory’s 3 and Brian F’s 2 but…. Not as high as absolutle Babes from Aquelonia whom I had tokens for to a total of 15….

Conan was displeased, he beheaded Brian, marched off and his kingdom failed.  Not a happy bunny J

Great game, I recommend it, let’s play this again since we can now

More of that next Thursday

Huzzah!

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Bastardcon Lite 27th April – IT’S ON!

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Bastardcon returns for it’s sixth rerun this time with a different slant to it.  Entitled Bastardcon Lite, we’re planning a laid back relaxed day of gentlemanly board and card games.  Warhammer will not be the main feature this time.

Set you calenders and organise your affairs, it’s all happening on the 27th

Expect

  • X-Wing
  • Lords of Waterdeep
  • Mansions of Madness
  • Imperial 2030
  • Historical Tabletop
  • Last Days of an Empire

Plus a stack of other stuff, probably more than we can get through in one day, but we’ll give it a lash!

All welcome

 

 

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New Bloodbowl League

New Bloodbowl League

Right Gents,

who’s interested in an OPEN bloodbowl league?  Have been thinking about it and I spoke to a few players from the current one and they’re all in favour of playing a second league in parallel.  HERE’S a suggestion.  What about an open league? where you get to play as many games as you like but you take your best scores and after a set amount of time you compare them?

Hold on now! don’t run away, it’s not as crazy as it seems and I have had several sentences to come up with a cunning plan.  The idea would be that you would play on the BB open league against your “friends” and develop you team.  You would keep a record of your wins and most importantly keep a note of the DIFFERENCE IN TV for the matches you won.  You would get the points different if the team was ranked higher than you and HALF the TV difference if they were lower than you in TV.

You then simple keep the three best scores and after that set time I mentioned above you add all three best matches together.

All you need is the PC game and some friends who play….

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THUR night – pope Fran special

So anyhow. It was looking like a small group but within a short while we had a solid five and talk turned to galaxy trucker which is due out on the iPad soon. Having both it and the big expansion we quickly decided to give the cardboard version a lash

It has been a long time since it saw light and it took a wee while to re familiarize myself and the group with the rules. I’d forgotten how funny they were. In short you need lots if everything and every component is important

Galaxy trucker is a game about frantically constructing a spaceship from a dwindling set of parts before the other guys do and having hammered it together after a fashion (and of course cursing yourself and others for not attaching some useful systems) piloting it into the unknown and hopefully arriving in one largish piece before the others do.

Some skills lend themselves to this game very well. Those in the architectural or kitchen design area have an unfair advantage. So too those with knowledge of electrical systems. In short not me.

It’s important to realize and I can’t stress this enough. PLAYING is the reward. All those who take part are the real winners and the score may say different we were all winners that night… Just some more than others

The game rattled on to a fine old hour with some stupendous losses of ships and some radical designs all held together with one or two lynchpins.

Great game. Great gaming and let’s forget about silly old scores. I think everyone will agree we all won that night

Huzzah!

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