Supplies!

Perhaps it’s just the people I game with but if there’s an opportunity to descend into schoolboy humor we will. Repeatedly. Yedo was a target rich environment for just this, you’ll know why when we play it at the next Knavecon. Not since Serenissima have we sank so deep in the double entendres

Yedo is a similar beast to lords of water deep with a few subtle differences. The game sees you in ancient China trying to complete a variety of missions and score more prestige points than your opponents.

There are two phases to each of the eleven turns. The first is a bidding phase where you try and score various resources like weapons, geshias (highly flammable), extra rooms for your house, extra agents , missions, bonus and intrigue cards. There’s plenty of opportunities to force bids up and generally be a complete dick/front bum

The second phase sees you placing agents on the board in six different patrolled sectors to gather pretty much the same resources as you tried for in the bidding phase.

Missions require you to have agents in the right sector of the city and whatever resources are needed be it different weapons, money, blessings,geshias and so on. Missions come in four difficulties from handy green ones that give very little prestige to humdingers of black missions that require a shit ton of resources but reap big rewards.

Intrigue cards allow you to mess up your opponents plans in a limited way. Bonus cards give you bonuses for completing certain missions types, or having this that or the other at the end of the game.

There’s nothing particularly magical or unexpected in the game but it’s a good solid fun game. It’s a good length (see, schoolboy humor), the artwork is good, the theme is lovely, it’s competitive and close run. Is it better than Lords of Waterdeep? I’m not going to go there it’s apples and oranges.

I’m eager to play this again. There’s a good bit to it. As I said it’s going to be at the next Knavecon and I predict it will be a big hit

More of this sort of thing I say

Huzzah!

Vic

January 23, 2016 1

Fear of Kemet ment

They bite, they fight, they bite and fight and fight, bite bite bite, fight fight fight the itchy and scratchy show! Kemet’s a bit like that without the biting.

This has been on my to play list for a long time and after a false start the week before where we got one rule wrong, (albeit a critical rule) we got to finally play it for reals last thur. I knew before the game hit the table I would like it and I most certainly do.

Kemet sees you and up to four gaming chums beating the pudding out of each other repeatedly in an ancient Egyptian setting. You start with a city, three pyramids each showing your level in blue, red and white, five prayer points, a divine intervention card, ten troops, a half pack of cigarettes, it’s dark and you’re wearing sun glasses.

Everyone is racing to get to eight points in the short game and ten in the long version. You can get these points in a couple of ways, winning battles being a damn good one.

The map is divided into around twenty regions some containing your starting walled city, some temples and some open areas. Because of the clever layout of the map everyone is pretty much two spaces from temples and maybe four from each other so in no time at all you can be happily spilling blood (preferably your opponents) on the hot sands. Couple this with the ability to teleport to most parts of the map from your home city and you can be up in anyone’s business quick sharp.

The primary resource is prayer points which can be spent to raise troops, buy upgrade cards, teleport or raise your pyramids to a higher level and thereby grant you access to better upgrade cards. Everyone gets two free each night but you get bonus ones from taking and holding temples at the end of the round or stopping everything and having a quick pray. Some cards grant extra ones too and crucially (we missed this first time around) you can gain them by sacrificing your warriors to the gods once a battle has ended.

I’ve heard this game described as a knife fight in a phonebox but since there’s no such thing anymore I think of it more as a fistfight in a saloon with the piano never skipping a key. It’s all about being the last man standing at the end of the round in certain locations and not losing fights.

Upgrading your guys is essential if you’re going to survive. There are three colours (or colors if you’re American) of upgrades. blue (resources), red (attack), white (Defence) each with a level shown on your pyramid. Some of the higher upgrades give you access to various mythical monsters each of which will fight alongside your troops and grant attack, movement, Defence or some other bonus (I never leave home without one). Upgrade cards are unique so there’s a mini arms race going on for upgrades in conjunction with the race for points

For a conquest game it’s pretty quick. You’ll be done and dusted in and hour plus once the rules click for your group. If you want a longer game you can just up the victory points goal. Simples

This is a neat game. It’s fairly simple to learn and play. Looks great and plays smoothly. Don’t expect anything subtle or deep, it’s a pure slugfest but there’s still plenty of skill required to come out on top and there’s a definite urge to play again straight away after its finished. Longevity wise I’m not sure how often this game will appear after the initial appeal but in the holy words of Rick Deckard “I didnt know how long we had together… Who does”. Great game. I’ll be demoing it at Knavecon

Huzzah!

Vic

January 20, 2016 0

Happy 7 – Kickstater

In a continuation of the “Why do we love games” articles I spoke to Patrick Siebert, someone pretty serious about his gaming and a regular on the board game group. He co-hosts a real fun video blog on gaming called Just Got Played and is elbow deep in Siege of Verdan a new strategy game due to be released later this year. I’ve been chatting to Patrick for some time now and despite being American he does have a decent sense of humour and obviously a good Irish first name so he’s not all bad. Once the Teleport technology is in Beta we plan to get him to attend one of the Knavecon’s until then I asked him a few quick questions to see what he’s all about. Best read with the correct accents. Enjoy.

ggp

Patrick what’s your earliest memory of gaming.

How did it all start for you? I was the youngest of 4 kids and my brother was 7 years my elder. My first memory was of a war game spread out all over our kitchen table. I want to say it was Richthofen’s War , but I could easily be wrong about that I was five and instantly in love with the stories my brother spun about the game as I watched older kids struggle for victory.

What’s big in your gaming life at the moment?

Well Siege and Just Got Played of course, but other than my own stuff, I would say I am wrapped up in Pandemic Legacy like everyone else, and I have taken a shine to a game called Toast! and Operation Faust at the moment.

What is it about gaming that you love the most?

I love to sit down with people and truly interact with them, put my phone down , and give someone my attention even if it’s just for a little while. It helps, that with little exception, people in the tabletop community are usually very intelligent, and very supportive. I think board gamers are some of the greatest people in the world.

You’re big into your gaming. Want to let the nice people know about just got played and Siege ?

Yes, I host a game review channel with Brian Fiore called Just Got Played. We try to focus on unpublished and Kickstarter games. The little guy is really fighting to get noticed in the game world right now, we feel it is important that they get free, fair and honest reviews no matter how small the project. So please watch Just Got Played; you may get to see something you otherwise would have missed. We are 100% ourselves on the show and our humor can be a little…offensive, so enjoy that.

I have also created a board game that I will be bringing to Kickstarter on February 26, 2016, called Siege of Verdan. I truly love this game and how it works, even if I hadn’t created it. Each player starts the game with nothing more than a ruler (each with different individual abilities), a capital city, and a few resources from the state they occupy. They draw a hand of cards and spend resources to get explorers (move quickly and can traverse water), scouts (move quickly and have a little combat strength), Merchants (increase resources and allow trade between players), and diplomats (allow trade and enforce sanctions), military units that will wage war against your opponents, military units and capital city), spies and assassins that can eliminate individuals that oppose you – all while the Kings spoils track clicks down. This is just a quick “blurp” but the game tells an amazing story every time it’s played. Just great fun.

sov

What’s your favorite style of game?

Wow, another tough one. I like deep games that offer lots of player options. It needs some luck to, not a lot, just enough to make things interesting.

What’s the secret to a good nights gaming?

Great relationships! If you love the people you are with you can have fun playing almost anything. Free booze helps too.

What do you think is the next big thing in gaming?

I think we will see an increase in scenario/campaign based games, Time Stories, legacy style games, even Imperial Assault are already getting lots of attention and are doing well. I also think you are going to see a little uptick in slightly more complex party games, I predict more drunk people playing games!

What does 2016 hold in store for you?

I could go on forever, Siege of Verdan will be published, Just Got played will continue bringing you mildly humorous and very offensive reviews of great games. We will be going to conventions like Dice Tower Con, Gen Con, and Prototype Con and doing interviews and meet more great people in the industry. I will also be giving away my “designer” underpants (I have a pair of boxers shorts I had lots of game designers sign.) So that will be given away in some charity someplace. I would love to get a campaign of Imperial Assault going. I also recently got a fortune cookie that said I will be drugged and left for dead on the side of the Road in Mexico, so I am really looking forward to that. What about you, what are you looking forward to?

Games wise, I’m looking forward to a stack of games as yet unplayed and the first Knavecon of the year. That and wealth, happiness and Power.

Thanks Mr P. Talk to you soon

January 18, 2016 0

Splodin Kitty

Are you special? Are you precious? Do you have interesting obscure hobbies and a bunch of other special, precious obscure hobbyist best friends forever friends? Were you BIG into one potato two potato when you were a younger child? Great news! Exploding kittens will slot perfectly into your collection!
Exploding kittens is an elimination game in which the occasional no brainer choice appears. I could write a macro for the other players or a flow chart and have the same experience. I’m not familiar with the art or setting but it’s a low grade adventure time/uncle grandpa trippy sort of thing. Once you’ve laughed at the text on the cards you’re done. You just bought a pig (cat) in a poke

The game sees you trying to avoid drawing an exploding kitten from the draw deck. There’s one less than the number of players mixed in there so it’s last man standing.

It’s all about card counting and memory. If you’re good at that and to be honest all you need to do really is remember when people played their defuse card your good.

Every turn you have to draw a card at the end of your turn. If it’s an exploding kitten it’s game over for you if you don’t have a defuse card (everyone starts with one). The trick is to draw as few cards as possible or force a player to give you one of their good cards.

There’s a number of card types in there allowing you to skip your draw. Force another player to take two draws. Cancel a card. Look ahead three cards and stack the deck.
There’s a set of basic rules and more advanced. The advanced didn’t raise it much higher. The three games I played were enough. It’s lite but it’s no Great Dalmuti.

I was happy to have tried it but I won’t be rushing back. Less of this sort of thing

Huzzah!
Vic

January 15, 2016 0

Do I want to build a snowman?

If you’ll pardon the pun, Arctic scavengers leaves me a bit cold. After a couple of games I’m neither excited to or unwilling to play it again. It’s fine, it’s a solid game and it does introduce some new elements to the genre but it’s not epic and I demand epic. Again as ever this is an early review and I will return to it and review it again in coming months

Maybe it’s the theme that doesn’t grab me. The game sees you assembling a gang of survivors in the Artic with various skills. Scavenging resources, fighting, providing food, drawing cards (a really handy skill when it’s 20 below and a polar bear is trying to make you into a glove puppet) and trying to score highest in a number of categories (buildings, population, medical) all by the time one resource pile runs out. I just don’t like the setting. It’s bleak. I don’t know why everyone is up there (I don’t care enough to read the back story in the same way as I pick the standard character with no customization to start an RPG video game. If I like it enough I’ll come back to it, but for now, Jenny Generic is just dandy). I can’t associate with the cards. Let me put it another way. Ever go skiing? what’s the worst part? Getting kitted out and trying to remember everything. Getting your gear together in the cold. Stomping uncomfortably in sore boots, tired, burdened and cold. Now, the payoff is WELL worth the effort, way in excess in fact. I’m just not sure at least so far, that Artic Scavengers delivers the payoff. It feels all trudging and no soaring.

I’ve played numerous card games of this type, pretty much all of them good. Dominion, Ascension, Star Realms. This game to me looks a lot like these with a couple of extra rules. It’s not new.

The graphics are ho hum. It’s all blues, whites and greys. Yes I know it’s set in the arctic and granted It’s mostly been played on a black table by us but the palate is just plain dull and uninspired. Yes it adds to the whole end of the world feel but for me it’s just too Eddard Stark. (see what I did there?) I want to be entertained. Look at Star Realms the pictures are gorgeous, you want to study them, Artic Scavengers you couldn’t care less you just look at the numbers on the edge. The art work is work man like. All of the dudes look pretty much the same. Pretty much it’s a pic of a person or persons wrapped up well with a weapon/rope.

Now, what does pull this game from the bargain bin is the extra rules. Having a charasmatic leader that grants you a bonus is nice, some of them seem a bit overpowered to be honest (like the cannibal) and some of them well weedy but time will tell. The three piles of cards are good. The diminishing returns scrap pile adds something. It’s definitely worth digging there early on but judging wether it’s still worth the effort when a number of other players have rifled through it with their grubby gloved fingers is cool. The engineers and buildings is nice, but it’s a longer term play and we noobs didn’t go there that much.

The fights are definitely cool. This on it’s own adds a nice dimension. Cards not played are held for a big scrap at the end of each round to gain the round card that the first player each round got a peek at. By big scrap there’s no actual fight as such and the most muscle points wins the card and the others just don’t get a look in but don’t lose anything

Another bit I like is being able to remove as many cards from your hand permanently as you like at the end of the turn. This is a power move, but since it’s open to everyone it makes or should make it quicker to get to the good cards. The games we played, it didn’t. assembling your tribe is a slow business. Again it would speed up with more replays but the time per game is WAY longer than the side of the box indicates. Thats fine, I’m in no hurry but there is something to be said for shorter games and more of them since this is essentially a lite game

As you can see I’ve no strong feelings on the good/bad number line. I’m going to keep my opinion powder dry on this one and recommend you try before you buy and of course there’s no better place to try it than at the next Knavecon on the 30th April.

Huzzah!

Vic

January 12, 2016 0

Space Crusade

Flashback Friday review of a classic game from the 80s.

Space Crusade is a great game. When I first saw it back in the day I figured it was just heroquest in space. It’s not. It’s a very different beast

The game sees you and up to two others taking on a fourth overlord player who is going to make it their business to ruin your day.

It’s like a four player space hulk but a lot more social and to be honest a lot more fun. I’d play this game anytime over Space Hulk.

Missions follow a pretty similar pattern you arrive on a space hulk (dungeon) with four beweaponed space marines and their nails hard commander and need to get somewhere and do something, more than likely kill some big dude. Theirs a big supporting cast from kobol like space gretchens to lethal chaos marines and the big daddy ed209 style dreadnaught.

The map is split into four parts and as your team enters each the overlord places blips face down for you to get LOS and kill. You’ve probably guessed this but I love playing overlord and running an evil tower defence on the questing “heroes”. There’s is nothing as fun as the look on someone’s face who’s been facing gretchens and suddenly comes face to face with a chaos marine with a rocket launcher when they’re all badly bunched up. It’s quite common to lose all your grunt squad but your commander to carry the day.
There’s a time limit governed by a set of event cards (usually bad for the marines) that get drawn each turn.
Completing missions gives marines and more interestingly the overlord experience points which can be spent on equipment cards.
The game is unfortunately expensive now to get your hands on. More so the two expansions for it. However unlike heroquest from the same era this IS worth getting your hands on
It’s become a firm favorite at Knavecon and will be there front and center at the next

Huzzah!

Vic

January 7, 2016 3

Get your game plan on

331971999_6d6ceea4b4_b — I can see Clery’s now the rain has gone

2016 is upon us. Before it flies by I’m going to make plans to play some games I’ve always wanted to. Why not. It’s my year. Along with a minimum of two Knavecon’s it’s going to be a good year for gaming. Why? because I’m going to make it so. So… I’m going to need a plan and I’m going to set goals. I keep copious notes on my phone, mostly blog articles I’ve written up in advance but there’s also a set of notes I keep coming back to and adding to …. and subtracting from …. every so often. My precious. My planned play list. It consists of two things.

Games I fancy buying
Games I own and need to learn the rules of and more importantly get to the table

It’s a movable feast and I never see it gathering moss but equally there’s a number of games there I’ve wanted to play for a while and it’s time to move them along.

First up this year I’m determined I’m going to play KEMET I’m a big fan of Cyclades and I’ve wanted to play Kemet for a long time, I was lucky enough to snag it this Christmas as a gift so that’s first for next Thursday. After that there’s a dozen games I need to get off my shelves and breath life into them. All deserve a trot around the paddock and that’s what I’m going to do. So expect some talk about the following.

Theseus – The Dark Project
Spyrium
Camel Up – SUpercup
Twilight Imperium
Last Will
Jerusalem
Tash Kalar
Earth Reborn
Tournay
Vasca de Gamma
Fauna
Battlestar – Exodus
Risk – Godstorm
Risk – LOTR

I reckon if I get all those played this year I won’t be doing bad. So, watch this space. 2016 is going to be the best year of gaming yet.

Huzzah!

Vic

January 3, 2016 0

Tomorrow

And some people just want to watch the world burn or in this case all six of us would have been. By turn 5 we had gotten perfectly in character, lost the will to live and envied the dwindled population. This game is a dull game. It has the potential to be good but the execution was lame and uninspired. It’s a pity because the idea is good. The world is overpopulated. Reduce the population through drastic measures but make sure it’s your guys that are still standing at the end.

On paper (cardboard) it should work but in practice the actions are limited. Each turn you get to choose from two of five actions. Nuke, military, cyber attack, contagion, block. In truth the block, nuke and cyber attack are rarely taken. The nuclear option is very much a damp squid. The contagion after a round or two is weak as it removes a percentage rounded down in a lot of cases. So whomever gets in the first decent disease early on steals a huge march on everyone else and a lot of it is luck based.

I really wanted to like the game. It’s map based and conquesty but it feels half baked. I’m starting to think it was cheap for a reason. It had a lot of potential but it didn’t live up to it. I can forgive a lot. So so art work. Dull colors (it’s mostly grey) and a poor rule book with a number of grey areas. I can’t forgive poor execution and tedious play. It needs a reboot

It’s one thing to finish a game early and see who’s ahead it’s another to go, Let’s just give up and not care at all who won. That was our tomorrow experience.

I’d play version 2.0 of this if ever there was one but as always there’s a lot of good games out there and I don’t want to waste my valuable gaming time on just ok

There’s no tomorrow

Huzzah!

Vic

December 19, 2015 0

CBM64 Coup

I Like Coup. It’s a great little filler game. The expansion for it is good too. G54 rebellion is like the big brother of Coup. A chip off the old block but way cooler and with a leather jacket.

vv1
Rebellion has 25 roles each of which have various abilities, five of these are randomly picked and you have at it with these. The one constant from the original is you can always draw one coin per turn and if you have eight coins you can unstoppably coup someone. Oh that and everyone is still lying through their teeth about their roles. The setup is reminiscent of Dominion where you assemble a deck from mini stacks of identical cards and AWWWAAAAYYY you go.

The plus to this is every game is different. There’s an infinite amount of combinations or more accurately 25 factorial 5. Let’s call it 6 million or so. The down side is it’s going to take a while to learn this game as there’s so many bloody roles. Ok maybe that’s not a bad side, but it’s not conducive to a fast start. Players tend to roll back to the old reliable of amassing enough for a coup and just grabbing one coin in their turn.

vv2
It’s also a little harder to lie as you’ll be unfamiliar with the roles. That said the five roles are visible in the centre and it wouldn’t be above some players to use this to their advantage by appearing to read their role from their card before they pronounce what they are
If you like Coup you’ll like rebellion. I can’t say I’ve played it enough to get a full overview but let’s pretend I have and it’s great

Huzzah!

Vic

December 15, 2015 0

The thigh bone’s connected

Interviewer : “So Reiner Knizia what’s you’re new game like?”

Reiner : “The old one!”

Ilium is a Reiner Knizia medium length worker placement game. It’s not bad. I picked it up cheap at the last Knavecon buy and sell. Well worth what I paid for it.

The theme is not bad. You control an archeological team and take it in turns to place 1-3 dudes on paths leading to digs that contain various artifact cards with increasing numbers of artifacts of six different types.
Once paths to a dig are filled with dudes the player with the majority of adjacent workers gets to pick the lowest value artifact from one of the digs on the path. The next highest (with at least half as many workers) gets to pick from the dig at the other end of the path.

So it continues. The digs emptying out and better and better artifacts being snapped up by various players. Once a certain point it reached its game over count your sets and points.
It’s simple fun. The devil is in the detail. Out representing your opponents and cock blockery is king. There’s skill in here. I like the game. It’s light. If games like splendor appeal to you you’ll find comfort in this game.
I have some gaming buddies who are bosses at games like this. Luckily I didn’t play them yet at ilium. I did come close to winning. It was a refreshing experience.
I’d play again. Not rush to play but play happily
Huzzah!
Vic

December 13, 2015 0